Con VS Nerd
by Neale
Summary: This one will be mostly AU. I'll use some series tie ins and portions of the back stories from my other 'verses as well as parallels to Mr & Mrs C, just pushed further away from canon. Winters War.
1. Chapter 1

**My other stories seem to be losing steam at the moment, so I thought I'd try a something different for a while to shake things up. This one will be, at least at the start, mostly AU. That being said, I'll still probably use portions of the back stories from my other 'verses because I'm attached to them, they feel right to me. This will probably be similar to Mr & Mrs C, just pushed further away from canon.**

 **As usual, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

Jenny (also known as Jennifer Burton, Rebecca Franco, Katie O'Connell and so many other names since she was a little girl that she couldn't even remember what the last name that went with Samantha Lisa was any more) just looked at Tyler Woodcomb, the jock who'd bailed her up in the library, rather pissed off that he obviously expected her to be swept off her feet by the fact that HE was interested in HER. Yeah the guy was moderately cute, tall, blonde and built, but he was full of shit and thick as two short planks. She'd have to look into the family though, Woodcomb sounded like old money, and she knew she had to pull some cons to scrape up the money to cover the humongous fees that came with doing a triple major at Harvard (not like he or any others of his kind would ever understand how languages, international law and business management fitted together). And while she didn't have THAT many nightmares about what she and her father had been doing to their marks since she was seven, fleecing the trust fund babies and their pompous, overbearing families was far more palatable an idea than taking money from people who might actually need it (and who had actually done something to earn it). With the financial aspects going through her head, Jenny made herself smile at the jock and let him think he had a chance, until she confirmed how much he was worth, anyway.

When the young Mr Woodcomb had gone away, beaming about the prospect of a date with her the next weekend, Jenny thought about how she'd got to be where she was. One of the first thoughts that crossed her mind (as usual) was that she'd been lying to herself when she told herself that she didn't remember her full birth name, she'd inherited her father's almost perfect memory, so she was just blocking it out to keep from breaking down. When she was seven, her father had told her that they weren't going home, or back to Grandma's, because her mother didn't want them any more, she'd gone off to start a new life with someone else, at the time she'd believed him and had cried for days at a time, so when she'd kept begged him for over a month to let her call Grandma, her father had finally given in. When she started dialling, though, he'd left so Emma's mother couldn't get him on the phone to go off at him or ask where they were. As soon as she got past the relief of knowing that her Sammie was OK, Grandma had given her a number that she could call her mother on, and told her to do that straight away, because she'd always be there, waiting for her, but her mother needed to keep moving. As her father was still out she had called the number her grandmother gave her (the advantage of a perfect memory is that you only need to hear something once), her mother tried to stifle her tears when she heard her voice, and quickly explained to her that she'd NEVER wanted to leave her, but when they'd been caught and locked up back when she was little, she'd had to agree to work for those men who came in to prevent being taken away from her. Since then, that was where she was whenever she left for a while, but now she'd gone on the run once she was sure that her father wasn't bringing her back. She'd explained that it would be safer for her to stay with her father for a while, at least until she'd run far enough for the people after her to have lost her trail, but when it was safe she wanted them to be together, if that was what she wanted? Unfortunately her father had come in as she was excitedly talking to her mother and had ripped the phone off her and hung it up, grabbing their bags and leaving town straight away in case she'd told her mother anything that would let her know where they were.

After that, whenever she had a chance to call (every two or three months), she'd call her grandmother to get the new contact number for her mother, and she'd either talk to her mother, or call her grandmother back to tell her where they were if she couldn't get through to her mother. That went on for about five years, until her grandmother died when she was twelve. At first she just thought that her grandmother was out when she called, but when that went on for nearly a month she was starting to panic, until she finally got through and the people who were there cleaning out the house gave her the number that had been left next to the phone. She called the number that they gave her immediately even though she could hardly talk through her tears, and her mother wasn't much better, between losing her mother, being frantic that she'd never talk to her daughter again, and the fact that she'd stayed in one location for nearly five months waiting for Sam's call and she was panicking that the CIA would catch her (she'd told Sam who it was that she'd been working for and was running from now when she was ten) if she didn't run SOON, Emma was a wreck. Given that they were both expecting Sam's father to come back before too long, Emma choked down her tears and told her the details of their new communication mechanism, now that they couldn't leave their messages with Sammie's grandmother any more.

After that, they managed to keep in contact better, but by the time that Sam (or whatever her name of the month was) turned thirteen, she'd discovered that she actually enjoyed being as good a con artist as she could be (she was already better than her dad), and had decided to stick with this life for a while because her mother was still on the run from the CIA. She did have a moral dilemma when innocent people were harmed by their scams, and as she got older she'd understood what was going on when they skipped out on women that her father had seduced and gotten pregnant (taking all their money of course), but the thrill of the game made her push all that down and block it out, just like she blocked out how much she missed her mother and grandmother.

Things had fallen apart when she was sixteen, she'd convinced her father to stay in one place long enough for her to get legitimate school credentials for her to have a chance of getting into University, so they'd become Jack and Jenny Burton in San Diego. She came home from school one day in her little yellow Rabbit convertible, to see their house swarming with ATF agents and her father being put in the back of one of the cars out front, the sight had shocked her, but she drove on past as if it had nothing to do with her, until she was out of sight, and then she floored it to get to the emergency stash they'd buried just out of town for this type of situation as fast as she could. She'd just dug up the stash and made sure that it was intact when she heard a noise, and turned and threw the knife in her hand so that it just missed the tall black man standing beside a tree across from her. When he didn't flinch at all she knew that she was in trouble, but she let him ramble on and make his pitch. Luckily like most men he was an arrogant bastard so he believed that she'd just buckle and do what he wanted her to do, so she convinced him that she'd be turning up when he expected her to, and went home.

She kept going to school for the next couple of months, but she was just marking time while she wound up the cons that her father had been working on to get her stake together and getting the paperwork she needed to start again. As soon as she had what she needed, Jenny Burton of San Diego disappeared, and started an untraceable drive across the country in her Rabbit. Along the way, she built up her stake in hope of getting through university without having to "work", and frumpy, ugly duckling Jenny Burton with muddy red hair, braces and clothes that looked like they came from the goodwill disappeared. Jenny's ugly braces were gone, her hair went back to blonde and silky, she started looking after her complexion and she changed her wardrobe into something that actually complemented her (while keeping to the nice girl next door image). Unfortunately she had to hang onto Jenny Burton's name, as the academic credentials she'd been working on for the last year were all associated with that name. When she got to Massachusetts, she spent several nights making use of the skills that she'd been honing for the past ten years to break into Harvard's records department and make sure that all the paperwork was in place to confirm that Jenny Burton had been accepted into the courses that she wanted, and nothing was going to attract any attention. Once she'd done that, she settled into her snug little off-campus apartment and waited for enrolment day.

There were no surprises on enrolment day, she signed up for her courses and went to work. Because her three majors were spread over three different schools at Harvard, she didn't attract a lot of attention in any one area, her lecture attendance was enough to meet requirements, but marginal enough that most thought she was cruising (because she was juggling three majors, but they didn't know that), and the work that she turned in was always enough to keep her in the top 5-10 percentile. She'd steered clear of relationships and anything that would attract attention to her (just telling the ones pushing her for cheerleader try outs and other groups that she was a bit of a klutz and she was too shy to try drama or anything like that), and had been doing a good job of staying under the radar, but a few years in, the whole Harvard experience was costing a lot more than she'd originally planned for, so she was going to have to risk running some cons to get what she needed to get through, and trust fund babies like young Mr Woodcomb were the obvious source of those funds for that.

On the other side of the country, Chuck (Karol Bartek, or Charles Irving Bartowski to those who really knew him, also known as other names such as Charles Carmichael, John Smith, Charles Gancanagh and Max Powers) was heading across San Francisco in his Charlemagne Computers Etc van, and he was thinking about another Woodcomb, Devon Woodcomb (Jenny's would be beau's older brother, actually). Devon (or Captain Awesome as he liked to call himself) had been seeing Chuck's older sister Ellie (AKA Elana Bartek, or Eleanor Faye Bartowski to those who actually knew her, as well as Eleanor Charlemagne, Susan Jones, Eleanor Winters and Barbara Sommers) for a while now and Chuck wasn't sure how happy he was about that, he seemed to be giving Ellie what she wanted (though THAT was something Chuck REALLY didn't want to think about), but the guy was total frat boy, full of himself, with a constant stream of sexual innuendo (when he was being that subtle) and trying to give Chuck advice about everything when Chuck wasn't sure that he was bright enough to tie his own shoes. How he got through medical school was something that Chuck found considerably suspicious, and the only reason that he hadn't looked into it was that Ellie asked him not to, he loved his sister as the only constant in his life, and he wouldn't do anything to hurt her, so he'd refrained from investigating her Ken doll. Thanks to their parents' involvement in the seedier parts of the government, they'd had to disappear when he and Ellie were still kids, and even though Ellie was only three and a half years older than him, she'd essentially become a single mother to him when she was fifteen (and it had been ramping up to that ever since she was ten and he was seven), so Chuck really owed everything he was to her and her willingness to give up her childhood and teenage freedoms for him.

He and Ellie had been living shitty cover lives since their parents had to leave (well, they were initially only over in Encino, but visits with them were rare because it required considerable care to ensure that they didn't lead others to them), all the way through school, high school and now university, the story line was that they were from a struggling family and their parents were always off working somewhere, and when they got older the story was that their parents had gone back to the old country to take over the family business, so they couldn't do or anything that didn't fit into that story line, and they both had to be seen to have jobs to pay the bills. Ellie had managed to get herself set up in after hours lab assistant work before she was out of high school, the money wasn't great, but it was better than waitressing and let her show an income to explain her car etc, it was also work in her chosen field and didn't involve being groped or propositioned by perverts, so it was a much better option. As soon as he could get his license at sixteen, Chuck cashed in his already solid reputation as the local tech guru and started working "for" Charlemagne Computers Etc as their roving technician, doing installs, repairs, any technical work that he had time for. Charlemagne was really a shell company created by their parents and their influential friends for him, but it served three purposes, it gave him a chance to show a (quite) reasonable income for a kid his age, it gave him a believable reason to have transport (the van), and it gave him reasons to go to the places he had to for his "real" job. As for the name, well he thought it was pretty name when Ellie picked it for her identity, so they'd called the company that.

The thing was, even though they were hiding from some parts of the government, their parents were still working for the government, and their influential friends in the government who'd helped them hide and made sure that Ellie and Chuck were looked after had noted the brilliance and maturity of their children even before Stephen and Mary Bartowski "disappeared" and became Stefan and Marjan Bartek. Diane, Ellie and Chuck's godmother, had made a proposal to their parents that they have (older) fake identities created for the kids and have them do a bit of analyst work for the government, as this could supply the reason for the government to be providing cover lives for the pair. Stephen and Mary weren't thrilled about this, but they understood the need to have a justification for the outgoings, so they'd agreed. That was where things got REALLY strange, because the "team" headed up by "Susan Jones" and "John Smith" immediately became THE hot property in the government intelligence circles, the work they were doing was significantly more accurate and usable than anything any other team did, in any branch of the service, so as their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beckman was flooded with requests for them to analyse intel and provide projections, recommendations and directions on that intel. The problem was that they couldn't push back without blowing their covers sky high, so they had to run with it. Eleanor Charlemagne, as the identity behind Susan Jones, was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force when Ellie was sixteen, and Charles Carmichael (John Smith) was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy when Chuck was thirteen. Charlemagne and Carmichael didn't NEED to be part of the military, but as their work was mainly in the military space (with the rest for the intelligence community), it was decided that when questions were asked (not if, question time would start soon enough), they'd need some solid IDs behind them, and while Eleanor Charlemagne and Charles Carmichael were younger than Susan Jones and John Smith (they'd added over fifteen years to Ellie and Chuck's ages for those identities), they were old enough (just) to legally receive their commissions, so Eleanor Charlemagne was officially twenty when she received her commission, and Charles Carmichael was nineteen when he received his. They'd been getting promotions that were in keeping with their performance, so at this point, Eleanor Charlemagne was listed as a twenty seven year old USAF Captain, and Charles Carmichael as a twenty six year old USN Lieutenant Commander (even though Chuck was still a few weeks short of his twenty first birthday).

Because of the layered cover lives they had to live, they never had a chance to enjoy their teenage years, Ellie had to excel in high school to win the scholarships to the universities she was after, while working after school, doing half the work of the most sought after team in military intelligence, raising a teenager, and doing a couple of degrees by correspondence (well, she didn't have to, they were subjects that she was interested in and they set her up to do better in her desired career, but like the commissions the degrees made the Eleanor Charlemagne identity more solid), and while Chuck had another couple of years before he had to really buckle down with all that, he had to do everything she did except be a parent (though he did try to look out for her, too, so even that was similar).

Of course, all the work they had wasn't the only things that took up their time, even though they all believed that they'd muddied the trails of Stephen, Mary, Ellie and Chuck enough for the CIA to have lost their scent (Stephen and Mary had been with the CIA and that was why they had to disappear), Ellie and Chuck's godparents, Diane Beckman and Bryan (Bry) Mills, took their responsibilities to keep an eye out for them and protect them seriously, and as Bry was ex-military (well, he sort of still was as he was part of the CIA's Special Activities Division), he believed that one of the best ways to keep them safe was to make sure that they could look after themselves, so he pulled strings with the people he still knew in the various special operations groups across the services to get Ellie and Chuck put through the special operations trainings. When she was seventeen, Ellie was one of the first women who'd ever gone through those training courses, and she shocked a hell of a lot of people by making the grade, and even beating a reasonable number of the elite soldiers that she went through the training with (Bry wasn't surprised, he'd been Mary's partner and knew just what she could do, and he saw enough of her in her children to be sure that they were capable of just as much), and Chuck started before he was sixteen, doing even better than Ellie had. The people running these courses couldn't believe that this sweet, shy kid was wiping the floor with so many serious soldiers and setting records that others couldn't match, but even with that, Bry wasn't getting the result he was after. Bry was worried that the only time that Chuck seemed confident and happy seemed to be when he was in front of a computer, so he'd thought doing this training and getting respect from men like this would be enough to turn that around, but while Chuck obviously enjoyed doing the training and setting records, afterwards he went back to the quiet, introverted boy again. They were also trying something else that John Casey (the Ex-Marine Captain that Diane assigned to protective functions for Ellie and Chuck when it was deemed necessary) had suggested, and both Ellie and Chuck were taught to fly (starting at eighteen for Ellie and fifteen for Chuck), and they obviously enjoyed it, especially when they started on the jets and helicopters, but Bry wanted to try one more thing on the special operations training and got Chuck put into SEAL training at sixteen. Just as he had with the other special ops training, he blew them away and set more than a few records, and it did seem to sink in a little more that he'd excelled at the training that most men couldn't do, but it was the camaraderie with the SEALs that had a real effect on him, so Bry started getting Chuck (with John Casey) allocated to go along on the various special ops groups' missions in a fairly regular basis. Between this and growing list of planes and helicopters that he was flying, Chuck wasn't the shy boy all the time, it didn't change his personality, but he had an understanding of who he was and how exceptional he was, so he wasn't giving up and backing down from a challenge any more.

Now that Chuck was at Stanford and was on a pretty solid footing, Ellie took his advice and started chasing what made her happy, and that was why Devon was a regular feature of her apartment and her bed now. Chuck did have to concede that Devon appeared to make an effort, he'd bought the whole struggling siblings story, and announced that he was flying them back home to Massachusetts for a big twenty first bash for Chuck on the weekend of his birthday. While the thought was nice (if arrogant and pushy), they tried to beg off, saying that they couldn't get away for the weekend because they had commitments, but he just decided that they were making up excuses because they were embarrassed about the money (a natural assumption for him as his family was all about the money), and he'd already sweet talked the girls in the hospital offices to move Ellie's shifts around so that she was free for the weekend, so they were going to be celebrating Chuck's twenty first birthday with the Woodcombs, oh joy.

When the weekend came, Chuck flew out of San Francisco, while Ellie and Devon obviously flew out of L.A. and they met up at Logan International Airport in Boston MA. Woody and Honey (Devon's parents) were there to pick them up, and the whole way back, Honey made a big thing about not making a big thing about throwing a party for the charity cases. When Ellie gently closed her hand around Chuck's white knuckled fist and met his eye to let him know how sorry she was about all of this, Chuck unclenched his fist to gently squeeze her hand and then spent the rest of the trip looking out the window, trying to block out the harridan's voice. As soon as they got to the Woodcombs' Chuck begged off the pre-party activities that Devon had planned, saying that he'd had a big install the night before and he was wiped out, and he wasn't any good at that stuff anyway, he somehow managed to keep an apologetic smile on his face and laugh as the Woodcombs and their buddies harangued him about "being a man" and went to the guest room that he'd been allocated for a "nap". Ellie watched him go with sad eyes, she'd have to find a way to make it up to him for this shit when they were home. She couldn't believe that he had to put up with this on his twenty first, but as she watched Chuck leaving, she noticed that she wasn't the only one doing so. There was a beautiful blonde girl, Jenny, who was apparently there as Devon's brother Tyler's date, and she was ignoring the jocks (including her date) as she watched Chuck walking away with considerable compassion, but also with quite a bit of calculation in her expression.

Jenny watched the birthday boy, Chuck, walking away and thought to herself that she'd enjoy taking these bastards for everything she could, first they make a big thing about the fact that they flew them in and they're putting a party on for him because he and his sister are charity cases, then they all ridicule him because he doesn't want play their little jock games? Bastards! She hoped that she had a chance to talk to him sometime over the night, though, because he was nothing like the rest of them, she'd heard the Woodcombs talking about the fact that he was a scholarship brat as if that just proved the fact that he was a charity case, but they'd said he was doing a double major at Stanford, even they should be able to understand how difficult it was to get a full ride to cover that at a university like Stanford? Besides which, he seemed really nice, even with the justifiable anger that anyone who looked could see because of the shit he had to put up with there, he was obviously prepared to be forgiving and let them have their fun, it wasn't weakness, this man wasn't weak, he was just being the bigger man and let it go. As she watched him walk away, though, Jenny's eyes narrowed, for all of Chuck's obvious qualities, he was a liar, she watched the way he moved, and even with him holding himself rigidly to cover up his anger to anyone but a trained observer like herself, the way Chuck moved was NOT someone who couldn't do the activities that they had planned, aside from understandably not wanting to have anything to do with douches like that, her money was on his reason to beg out was that there was the risk of slipping up and actually letting them see part of what he COULD do. Jenny smirked a little at that, knowing that Chuck had totally pulled the wool over their eyes with his act, but as she looked away from him, she caught his sister Ellie's eye. Realising that she'd been caught out, and that Chuck wasn't the only one in that family who was far more than they seemed, she smiled at Ellie to concede that she'd been caught out, and was surprised by the warmth of the smile that Ellie matched her's with, well maybe this party wouldn't be a total loss after all, because it looked like there were at least two people here worth talking to. With that thought, she walked over to Ellie to introduce herself.

The party itself wasn't that much different from the pre-party activities, it was the Woodcombs and their buddies doing what they wanted, and expecting Chuck and Ellie to be grateful. Jenny had had a good talk to Ellie while Chuck was having his "nap" and found that she was just as interesting as she'd expected. During the party itself, in between having to dance with Tyler and avoiding his attempts to get her in private to make out (and the rest) because she wasn't the sort of girl to do that on a second date that was someone's birthday party (so it wasn't a date, really), she made time to talk to Ellie and Chuck and she quite enjoyed spending time with them. Towards the end of the night, she did make a show of getting drunk and making out with the birthday boy, then getting so embarrassed that she got one of Tyler's buddies' girlfriends to take her back to Cambridge (some of the other girls were over the shit that was going on, too, and they didn't feel like giving the guys what they wanted so they were glad for the excuse to bail on the whole scene).

The next morning, Chuck and Ellie thanked the Woodcombs profusely for his party and got a lift back to the airport, Ellie smiled to herself when she saw how much happier Chuck was now than he'd been on the way to the Woodcombs', and she was willing to bet that the smile on his face wasn't because he was getting away from the Woodcombs, she'd seen Jenny's face just before she started making out with Chuck at the party and she WASN'T drunk, what's more she was pretty sure that Jenny didn't just do that to upset Tyler, because the looks that she and Chuck had been sharing when they talked were saying that they liked each other. Oh well, Jenny had her number, hopefully she'd call her to get Chuck's number. If she could get Chuck away from that other bitch, Ellie thought, she'd kiss her herself, she didn't know what it was about Jill, but she just didn't like her, at all!

Chuck made his goodbyes to Ellie and Devon at the airport and ran, because "his" flight to San Francisco was leaving, of course, what Ellie knew but Devon didn't was that he had to get that flight because it was the only one going via Washington, because he was catching up with their parents and "Aunt D" at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport before he got a flight on to San Francisco. She really wished that she could have seen them too, but it was Chuck's birthday, so she was glad that it had worked out so that he could.


	2. Graduation

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters or people portrayed etc.**

* * *

When Chuck got into Ronald Reagan Airport, what was planned to be a short catch up at the airport turned out to be a half a day affair back at his parent's place, but when he pointed out that he had to get back to San Francisco, they just smiled and said that he'd get back in time. As he'd learned a long time ago not to bother trying to argue with his parents or godparents, he just shrugged and enjoyed the time with them. When they wound up there, Aunt D told him that she'd give him a lift, and once they were in her car she handed him two envelopes, the one with one of Chuck's cover names on it contained the paperwork and ID for "his" promotion to USAF Major Charles Gancanagh, along with his USAF Senior Pilot's paperwork and badge, paperwork to say that he'd graduated from the USAF Test Pilot School, and a few flight orders. The first was to ferry a Libyan MiG-25 from Joint Base Andrews to the United States Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the second to ferry an F-15 from Wright-Patterson AFB to Travis AFB, and the third was a heli flight to drop him back at San Francisco International Airport, where his van was. She smirked as she watched him go back the MiG-25 ferry flight paperwork and and confirm that he had actually had written orders to "test the capabilities of the aircraft" on the flight to the USAF Museum. Chuck looked at her with glassy eyes, the promotion in rank and pilot grade had been great, the chance to fly a F-15 across the country again was wonderful, but the MiG-25 flight was incredible, it was about the only thing currently flying that would do over Mach 3 (they'd been clocked at Mach 3.2), and that was a dream for pilots like Chuck, he'd flown a number of MiGs and SUs, and had gone through the simulator exercises for the MiG-25, but he never thought he'd actually have a chance to fly one at over Mach 3. The look Aunt D gave her driver after Chuck hugged her assured him that he'd spend the rest of his career in the Antarctic base if he ever spoke a word to this to anyone, and he nodded to indicate message received, but couldn't hold back a smile, she let him have that. When he'd settled down, Chuck held up the envelope with Ellie's cover name on it, raising an eyebrow, Aunt D just said that Captain Charlemagne had also been promoted to Major and got her Senior Pilot's grade, and he was delivering the paperwork etc to her.

At Andrews, they had flight gear waiting for Chuck, and once he'd suited up he did the walk around on the MiG, getting a few things re-checked and amended before he climbed into the cockpit. The dubious looks he'd been getting from a number of the people there (including Colonel Beckman's driver) were changing to thoughtful, as it looked like this guy DID know the MiG-25. The thing was, even though this flight was a 21st birthday present from Aunt D, Chuck may have been the only person currently in the US who was qualified to fly this MiG because, a) He had a reasonable number of flight hours up on similar Soviet jets. b) He'd completed all the simulator exercises for the MiG-25. c) He had (as he'd just proved) all the checklists for the MiG-25 in his head (Jenny wasn't the only one with a near perfect memory). d) While it may be debatable whether he'd legitimately graduated from the USAF Test Pilot School, he had completed all the functional areas of the curriculum, and e) Neither the original Cyrillic labelling on the instruments and controls nor the Arabic re-labelling for the Libyan Air Force were a problem for him because he could read both quite well. When he'd completed all the check lists to his satisfaction, he got his clearance to take off, saluted the Colonel and closed the canopy as he taxied towards the runway.

They watched the MiG take off, then the Colonel hopped back into the rear of her car to be driven to the command centre, where they were set up to record everything on the flight to Wright-Patterson, and if she knew her godson, he'd push that plane to the limit, it was going on display when it got to the Air Force Museum, which meant that if he destroyed the engines by maxing them out (as was reported to happen), it wasn't going to be a problem, so they were going to see if a MiG-25 could still reach Mach 3.2. Chuck took the MiG up to altitude and once he was well clear of any metropolitan areas, he pushed the throttles to the stops, only pulling back when it was time to start descending for Wright-Patterson. After he'd landed at Wright-Patterson and was taxiing to the hangar where the MiG was to be cleaned up to be put on display, the Colonel's voice came over the radio, asking "Would you like to know what your MiG will do, Major?" Given that this was an open channel, Chuck tried to stick to protocols "MY MiG ma'am? I'm just the ferry pilot, but yes, it would be appreciated if you could advise me what the old girl managed to do, ma'am." He could hear her trying to stifle a chuckle as she replied "Well you will be the last pilot to fly that particular aircraft, so you do have some claim to it Major, but you've just confirmed that the MiG-25 is capable of Mach 3.2, our monitoring of your flight recorded you at Mach 3.22, to be precise." Chuck could hear the celebrations in the background, yes, the MiG was supposed to be an "enemy" craft, but the guys there were pilots and flight engineers, and like him, going over Mach 3 was like the holy grail for them. At that point he realised that he hadn't responded to her. "Thank you ma'am, that was quite impressive." He could still hear the laughter and warmth in her voice as she said "Congratulations Major, God speed on your flight home" "Thank you ma'am." When he'd signed over the MiG to the Museum's representatives, he grabbed his bag and got a lift to where the F-15 was waiting for him, he did the same walk around he had with the MiG, but there was nothing wrong with the F-15, as they knew this aircraft, so stowing his bag in the cockpit, he ran through the rest of the check lists, got clearance to take off and had it in the air ASAP.

When he landed at Travis, he signed over the F-15 and headed over to the Blackhawk that was waiting for him. Obviously it had recently been used for special ops exercises, as it had the derrick for the fast rope apparatus mounted. Chuck asked the Crew Chief whether they had the fast rope and some gloves on board, and when he said yes, asked him if he could hook it up, when the Crew Chief questioned whether he was trained for that, he dug out his USN SEAL Lieutenant Commander Charles Carmichael ID to show him, at which the Crew Chief apologised and grabbed the fast rope to set it up while Chuck explained to the Pilot what his plan was. When Chuck showed him his SEAL ID, the Pilot did exactly the same thing the Crew Chief had, looked over at the F-15 he'd just hopped out of and started to ask what a SEAL was doing flying F-15s before clamming up. Chuck just smiled and told him he was better off not knowing, at which he just nodded and said "Yes, sir". The flight to San Francisco Airport didn't take long, and it was little more than a stop and go manoeuvre above the roof of the parking garage while Chuck slid down, his salute when he was standing on the deck more of a wave, and the Crew Chief answered in kind as they turned away and he started hauling the rope up. As they headed off, Chuck pulled his van's keys out of his pocket and hit the remote to unlock it, climbing in and taking off for Stanford, or rather the little apartment that he "shared" just off campus there.

He'd only just arrived and dropped his bag when he got a call from Ellie telling him to turn the TV on, as he did so he asked "Which channel?", but when he changed it over what he saw and heard left him dumbstruck, as the familiar figure on the screen was saying "If you heard the crack of doom and felt your house shaking earlier, and you're sitting there waiting for the apocalypse to arrive folks, don't worry, that was just the Air Force testing out a Russian jet that's going into their museum in Ohio" The picture of the MiG-25 outside the hangar where he'd left it filled the screen as the announcer continued. "Apparently Air Force Test Pilot Major Charles Gancanagh got the old Russian Cold War jet fighter up to just over Mach 3.2 on its final run, which is about as fast as anyone has ever flown over the United States, so we weren't being invaded, and it wasn't an earthquake or Armageddon, it was just the boys playing with their toys folks." Ellie sounded a tad brittle as she asked. "Don't we know MAJOR Gancanagh Chuck? Isn't he that test pilot friend that Uncle Bry introduced us to?" Ellie had gone quiet after speaking, and Chuck took that chance to tell her that both their Air Force identities had been promoted to Major and Senior Pilot, but they'd also signed him off as having graduated from Test Pilot School early and gave him the MiG-25 to take for its last run to the museum, because he was familiar with the type and had completed all the simulator time for the MiG-25. He could hear Ellie's smile back in her voice when she asked what it was like, he was beaming as he said that it was a bit rough and ready, shaking all over the place when it was at the limit, but knowing that he'd taken it up to Mach 3.22 was such a rush. That being said, the F-15 he'd flown the rest of the way back had felt a lot safer. Ellie went quiet again and he belatedly realised that he'd just dropped another bombshell. "Oh yeah, they laid on an F-15 for me to get the rest of the way home, too." Ellie's "Hmmph" said that they'd be discussing this when there weren't any other ears around. They hadn't laid on anything like this for her when it was her 21st, and Chuck readily agreed that that wasn't fair, but he couldn't help being excited about flying that MiG. He promised to come down next weekend with her paperwork etc and they finished the call with their usual heartfelt "Love you"s.

As he was putting all the paperwork, IDs etc away in the safe with his weapons and other sensitive gear, Chuck had to concede that he was getting more than Ellie was out of this, whereas they both had four "working" identities, USAF Major Eleanor Charlemagne, USA Captain Susan Jones, USN Lieutenant Eleanor Winters and USMC Captain Barbara Sommers for Ellie and USN Lieutenant Commander Charles Carmichael, USA Captain John Smith, USAF Major Charles Gancanagh and USMC Captain Max Powers for Chuck, (a large part of the reason that they needed the four was the missions or operations they went on with Casey, as they used an identity and rank in whatever service that the operations team was from to fit in), Chuck had two identities with a higher rank before Ellie had even one. That was largely due to those special ops missions he did, as he was getting more decorations and promotions from his part in them, but he was also getting more recognition than Ellie for the straight intelligence work, and that was no more justified in his eyes than it was in her's, it was just old fashioned misogyny in the military because the old men thought that a woman's place was in the bedroom or the kitchen and they resented women making inroads professionally.

* * *

Back at Harvard, Jenny was working on her plan to get the money she needed from the Woodcombs, because after that "party" she'd been to, they deserved whatever happened to them. She could devote as much time as she needed to the planning because she'd effectively finished all her courses, she already had enough to get honours or high distinctions on all her degrees, so all she really had left to do now was the final exams, and they'd be easy. While she was making her plans, she also mused that it'd be fitting, as well as nice, to send some money Chuck and Ellie's way, if half of what the Woodcombs were saying was true they could use some help on that front, and they deserved it after what Ellie had told her. She hadn't been telling sob stories, just cute anecdotes about Chuck growing up, but Jenny could read between the lines enough to tell that they'd been doing it hard. It worried her a little the way that those two, especially Chuck, consumed her thoughts so much after just talking to them for a few hours, well, not just talking she remembered with a smile. Initially, pretending to be drunk and latching onto Chuck had been to get at Tyler, because he'd been pissing her off with his totally unsubtle attempts to get her away to "have some time alone", but what was supposed to be a quick kiss, followed by an embarrassed exit, had turned into a make out session that made her blush even now when she remembered it. She had felt more with him than she'd ever felt with anyone else, and she just didn't want to stop (and neither did he, that much had been obvious), she wasn't a virgin, she'd been to bed with a few guys that she'd liked while she was at Harvard, but what she'd felt kissing Chuck was more than she'd felt with any of them.

Jenny was pulled away from her thoughts by a knock on the door, and she was distracted enough by those memories as she wandered over with a smile on her face to open the door without checking to see who was outside, so when she saw the tall, imposing figure of the man who'd put her father in prison, she just stopped, unable to do anything. The smile on his face was anything but reassuring as he said. "Hello Sarah, I thought we had a deal?", before moving forward so she had no choice but to back up and let him in. Graham closed the door behind him and indicated that she should take a seat at the table, and while she thought that she might be able to take him, that was by no means certain, and even if she could he'd probably just pull out a gun and shoot her, so she did as he ordered.

"Miss Burton, I expected to see you in my office over four years ago, that was what we agreed to, wasn't it?" Jenny looked up at him, trying to work out how she could play this and get out of it, but she was coming up blank so she just tried doing the ditzy co-ed thing "I meant to Mr Graham, I really did, but I stopped by here on the way and I just got caught up in everything, so I couldn't leave." Graham gave up on the fake smile and went with his natural menacing look. "Do you think that I'm an idiot, that you can play me like the frat boys and professors you're working here? When someone makes an agreement with me I expect them to keep it, or have you forgotten about your father?" With that he threw a file on the table, a file that contained numerous references to how many close calls her father had had in prison, getting rescued just in time to stop something dire happening to him. When she'd had a chance to take that in (Graham knew all about her perfect memory, so he knew that it would only take one look for her to get it), he went on. "We've been protecting your father so far, but if you don't honour your agreement to me that stops now." He held up the cell phone in his hand with the implied "Just one phone call" threat. Jenny slumped in resignation, asking whether she could finish her degrees, or did she have to just throw the last four years away? His smug smile came back as he responded. "No, your degrees will actually be useful, and congratulations on doing so well, by the way. Of course, as all you need to do to complete them is to come back for your final exams, you'll be coming with me and you'll be escorted at all times when you do come back to make sure that you don't change your mind about cooperating." Jenny's eyes narrowed as she looked at him, she was starting to see just how much she would loathe this man. "What about my fees? I still have about thirty thousand that I need to pay off." Graham waved that away, saying the the CIA would handle that, they might even cover them if she did well enough, and with that told her to pack what she needed because she wouldn't be coming back here again.

As Jenny packed some clothes and the few things that actually meant anything to her, she asked how they'd found her, and given that she was finally in hand, Graham decided to throw her a bone. "It was the languages, actually, our recruiter here reported an amazing young woman who was a prodigy in languages, as well as being good at just about everything else, apparently, and when the name Jenny Burton came up I just had to follow up on that. Imagine how surprised I was to find that though you look rather different now (love the new look, but we'll make you look even better than that before we're through), it was the same girl who'd slipped through my fingers in San Diego. So we checked into everything you'd done and were quite impressed, you've obviously lived up to the potential that I saw back in San Diego. Anyway, that's why I'm here, to bring you in to make sure you do what you agreed to the last time we met. Don't worry, we'll tell the university that you had to leave because of a family emergency (waving his phone), and set it up so you can come back to do your final exams and graduate without any problems." Graham went on to explain that they'd also maintain the apartment and store her car for as long as they were needed to protect her cover.

When Jenny had everything she thought she needed, she did one last check and then told Graham she was ready to go. Graham motioned her out, not making any offer to help her with her bags, but it was hardly a surprise that he was no gentleman. At least the driver of the Lincoln Town Car waiting in the street took the bags off her and put them in the trunk, but she noted from the way he moved and the gun that he was carrying that he wasn't just a driver, he was probably an agent of some sort. Graham didn't say anything on the drive to Boston Airport, and the look he gave her when she went to speak ensured that she didn't, either. At the airport, she couldn't miss the way the car was waved though the gates so it didn't even pause until it pulled up next to the Learjet, or whatever it was, Graham just signalled for her to get out of the car without a word and did the same to tell her to get on the plane ahead of him. This was shaping up to be a REAL fun time. The silent treatment continued until they'd landed at Langley and headed into Graham's office, at which point he became very businesslike, calling his assistant (another agent, she noted) in with a pile of paperwork and contracts that his look told her to sign without arguing. When she'd done that he told her that he'd be keeping an eye on how she was going (some people may have been fooled by the fatherly posturing he was doing, but she could see the threats he had underlying his every word), and sent her off with an agent to be taken to their training facility.

Over the ensuing months, Jenny (no, Sarah, Graham had made it quite clear that the name he gave her over four years ago was what she'd be using from now on, so she was Sarah Walker now) ploughed through anything and everything put in front of her. Any time they decided that she wasn't trying hard enough (even though she was blitzing everyone else there and taking most of the long standing records), or she wouldn't do something they told her to, she'd get a message to say that her father had had an "accident" in prison to make her buckle down and do what they wanted. The only thing she wouldn't do was become a whore for them, they kept pressuring her to use sex to get the objectives, but she wanted to be able to see her mother again one day and she wouldn't be able to look her in the eye if she'd been whoring herself out for the people that her mother had been running from since she was a little girl.

To say that she was surprised about where she got support from on that point would be an understatement, Roan Montgomery, the older agent that they had teaching Infiltration and Inducement of Enemy Personnel (which was known as Seduction School to all of them) was an incorrigible old rogue, and he'd charmed his way into the pants of half the girls in his classes (charmed, not pressured, they said he was incredible and worshipped him as a perfect gentleman, the exact opposite of every other guy there, even the ones who'd turned him down said that he took it very good naturedly and was a great friend, and they worshipped him almost as much as the ones who'd slept with him), but he was adamant that using sex to achieve the mission objectives was proof that you'd failed, and he was prepared to stand up to anyone (even Graham when he came to the Farm) and argue that point with them. She liked Roan, she wasn't one of his conquests but she enjoyed talking to him, and especially enjoyed hearing his stories about the legendary Agent Frost, who'd set many of the records that she took over twenty years earlier. Apparently while Frost wasn't a direct friend of Roan's, they were in the same circles as she was close friends with someone he was very close to (it seemed to go deeper than being lovers, but that was one thing he wasn't willing to talk about), so they'd had a fair bit of contact over the years, and the way he looked at her when he told her that while Frost would never be happy about losing her records to anyone, he thought that she'd be happy that it was Sarah if it had to be anyone, because she was a lot like her, it made her feel better than anything else had since she was pulled into this.

It didn't take her anywhere near as long as any normal recruits to get through the Farm, partly because she'd already had nearly fifteen years of training and experience in all aspects of being a con artist (which used very similar skill sets in many areas) and many aspects of fighting, she had her father's almost perfect memory so once she saw anything she had it, and she was far better physically and mentally than any other recruits. The end result was that, in a fraction of the time that it took the others she'd gone through everything that they'd do and had moved on to advanced martial arts, weapons, driving, flying, paramilitary training, and all the other things that the better agents were brought back for to expand their capabilities once they'd proven themselves. The extensions to the training were actually fun, she was taught how to get the most out of the best sports cars and race cars and bikes available (on-road, and off), and she really liked flying, it was mostly the various types of planes and helicopters that would be used on missions, but she also got qualified on a wide enough array of business jets that she'd be able to handle most of them, and it was a rush when she got qualified on the F-15 and F-16, when you love going fast, you can't do better than a supersonic jet. The day she qualified on the F-15, she remembered Jay Leno talking about that Air Force Test Pilot who took a MiG-25 to just over Mach 3.2 on its way the Air Force Museum, she would LOVE to have been able to do something like that.

It was the paramilitary training that she fitted into the best, though, as usual she'd excelled, and a few of the instructors commented on how similar she was to a brother and sister who'd done their special ops training back when they were teenagers, she could tell from the way they said it that that was meant as a compliment. When she asked about them, though, the men tended to clam up, making it obvious that there was something about those two that wasn't OK to discuss. The most that she could get out of them was that the sister was damned good, but Mowgli was something else, and when one said with a laugh that he'd love to see a competition between her and Mowgli, the others had all agreed. Sarah had sworn at them and told them that it was just cruel to go on about this guy like that when she'd never meet him (because it was obvious that they'd all liked him, as well as being impressed with him), but she'd been surprised by the response she got when one one of them looked thoughtful and said "You never know, he's sometimes brought in for difficult missions, and I have a feeling that you're gunna be involved in a lot of difficult missions." He'd grinned at that point and added "You've just got that difficult vibe about you", laughing and ducking as she threw something at him.

When she went back to Harvard to do her final exams, her training was almost over, she'd just come back to do advanced topics every now and then. She didn't get to go to her graduation as Graham had decreed that it was too much exposure and they couldn't risk anyone remembering what she looked like. Before her diplomas were sent out, though, the CIA hacked into Harvard's systems and replaced every reference to Jennifer Burton (well the ones with her Student ID anyway) with Sarah Walker, so all her diplomas were issued for Sarah Walker. They also traced any references to external identifications back and switched Jenny Burton to Sarah Walker there, too, essentially Jenny Burton ceased to exist as soon as she graduated.

* * *

The day after Chuck got back from the East Coast, he went to see his girlfriend, Jill Roberts, things had started being off between them lately, but she wouldn't tell him what was wrong. The fact that she had begged off going to the East Coast with him for his 21st because her family had something on that she had to go to was a pretty clear sign that things weren't right, though. She'd called him (once) to wish him happy birthday, but when he'd tried to call her when he got back last night, her phone had gone straight to voice mail every time. He knew that she had the morning free of any classes, so he thought this would be a good time sit down and talk things out, he was also feeling guilty about how much he'd enjoyed kissing Jenny at "his" party. Because of that, he was mainly here to finish things with Jill. As he got to Jill's room, it was obvious (to anyone in the hall) that sex was going on in there, very loud sex. Presuming that it was Jill's room mate Shari, he started to turn away and pull his phone out to call Jill once he was out of earshot of the sex show currently going on in her room, when he heard them speaking, and it was Jill, his girlfriend that everyone knew that he had been planning to propose to at graduation, and his supposed best friend, Bryce Larkin. Chuck froze at that, slowly putting his phone away and turning back to the door of Jill's room. He reached for the door handle, and finding it unlocked, opened the door and walked in, closing it behind him.

Neither of them noticed as he walked up to the bed, until Jill turned her head, laughing, to look at Bryce and saw Chuck standing behind him. When she gasped "Chuck!" and tried to pull away from Bryce, but he just hung onto her hips and kept going, saying "Why are you thinking about that idiot loser at a time like this? Don't worry baby, he doesn't have a clue about us." She kept trying to get away from him as she shouted "No, he's here, look behind you!" When that finally sunk in, Bryce whipped his head around to see a disconcertingly calm Chuck standing there. What was truly amazing, though, was that he thought he could talk his way out of this, turning around, he started out. "Chuck, buddy, this isn't what it looks like!" Chuck looked at him in disbelief. "Really? Because it looks like my douche ex-best friend is screwing the stupid slut who couldn't be bothered telling me that we were through." At that Jill screamed at him "Where do you get off calling me a slut?" He just laughed at her, looking from her to Bryce and back before saying. "I'm just telling it like I see it!" Bryce tried again, getting out "Chuck, you've got to listen to me..." Before Chuck cut him off "No, you bastard, I don't have to listen to a word either of you say ever again, you can just keep on sticking your.." Looking down with a snort "Well, what looks like a dick but smaller into that stupid slut as much as you like, just don't ever cross my fucking path again!"

Bryce went to grab him but he blocked the grab, digging into a nerve point so that he went down onto his knees, but Chuck was seeing red at that point and he followed that up with a right cross that pounded Bryce into the floor with a probable broken jaw. When Jill came at Chuck, screaming, with her talons extended at his face, he slapped her down too. He stood there, looking down at the naked couple on the floor in disgust, Bryce was out cold with blood dribbling out of his mouth and Jill was dazed and moaning, holding her hand to the cheek that was red from his slap. He nudged Jill with his foot to make her look up at him and told her "Make sure that your new boyfriend understands that if either of you ever crosses my path again, it will go a lot worse than this for you!" before he turned to leave, but as he did so the framed picture of him and Jill on the dresser caught his eye. When he saw the picture, he crossed to the dresser and picked up the frame, smashing it to extract the picture and tear off the part that had him in it before throwing the rest back onto the dresser. When he stormed out of Jill's room, he left the door wide open so the crowd gathering in the hall could see the naked couple laying on the floor, a few people called out to him but he didn't look back as he left.

Word got around pretty quickly about what had happened, and Chuck was deluged with calls and visits from everyone (including Bryce's fraternity brothers, because it was universally accepted as being a bastard move to screw his best friend's almost fiancé), asking him if he was OK? Given that he just wanted to try and forget about everything to do with those two, he couldn't handle having this rubbed in his face all the time, so he went to talk to the administration about what his options were. He was in the same position as Jenny (though he didn't know that of course), in that he already had enough to get honours on his degrees, and all he needed to do was the final exams. While it was irregular, people in the administration had heard about what had happened, too, and they were quite aware of Chuck's good reputation, so they formally released him from the requirements to attend for the rest of his courses, just reminding him of when he had to return for his final exams. Chuck thanked them and headed back to his apartment, packing everything he wanted to take with him and clearing everything perishable out of the 'fridge and cupboards before hitting the road for L.A.

He wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do, he knew that he could stay with Uncle Bry, Jeff or Anna for a while until found himself a place, but he he was even more aware that his first stop had to be at Ellie's to explain what had happened, and to talk her out of going up to Stanford to kill those two. For a pacifist and healer, Ellie had a vicious streak reserved for anyone who hurt her baby brother. Even though he didn't want to think about Jill and Bryce, the five hour drive gave him a lot of time to do just that. Chuck wondered what he'd done to make this happen, he hadn't neglected Jill, he thought he'd been making her happy and more to the point, and even though the sex hadn't been as great as it had been with other women who'd let him do what he wanted for them, at least the multiple orgasms that she repeatedly had seemed to say that it was working for her, so how did it get to the point where he walked in on Bryce fucking Larkin doing her doggy style a couple of days after his 21st birthday? That was another thing, yeah, he knew from the stories that Bryce was always screwing around with someone's girlfriend, but that guy had been like a brother to him, he was over at the frat house with him at least two or three nights a week and Bryce had helped Chuck find Jill's ring, how could he do something like this? Chuck spent over half the drive going back and forth on those questions before he gave up and just cranked the music up, only to stop it to call Anna and ask if he could crash with her tonight (Uncle Bry was his Godfather, and Jeff had been a good friend since he was fifteen, but with Jill and Bruce dead to him, Anna was the only friend he had who was close to his age, and getting a woman's perspective may help him sort all this shit out). Anna's immediate response was "Yes, of course!", but the question of why didn't take more than fifteen seconds to follow it.

Telling Anna about what had happened with Jill and Bryce and that he was coming back to L.A. with his tail between his legs was actually quite cathartic for Chuck, and the way she told him in no uncertain terms that none of this was his fault, that was all on the slut and the bastard did make him feel a little less of a failure. Once he called her, Chuck talked to Anna for pretty much the rest of the way to L.A. and he ALMOST felt up to telling Ellie what had happened. Unfortunately, Devon was there when he arrived at Ellie's and he insisted on sticking his nose into the private discussion that Chuck was trying to have with his sister. When he tried to tell Chuck that this wouldn't have happened if he'd been having the ginseng shakes that he'd been trying to get him to have, Chuck just looked at him and then walked out the door without another word. After ignoring the first half dozen calls from Ellie, Chuck answered before she got too frantic and told her that he was going to stay with Anna tonight, he just couldn't be anywhere near Devon at the moment. He promised her that he'd be OK, and that he'd talk to her tomorrow.

At Anna's, he had to turn down her offers to help him forget all about what had happened, and almost left to find a hotel before she promised to behave and went back to being the friend she was. With that out if the way, they settled down to a shots dice game that Anna came up with (they loaded up the coffee table with bottles of a dozen different forms of liquor, numbered the bottles and rolled a pair of dice, whatever number came up, that was what they had shots of), there was a reason she called the game Oblivion, as they both pretty much had alcohol poisoning by the time they'd passed out, but it served its purpose, Chuck stopped thinking about Jill and Bryce.

The next morning, they were both totally wretched, and after whispering obscenities at the phone when Ellie called and promising to call her as soon as he was capable of carrying on a conversation, Chuck carted Anna into the shower (she was still incapable of standing up in there by herself and they both needed one) before making a hearty breakfast for both of them. After they'd had breakfast and were feeling a tad closer to human, Anna went to check her emails and called Chuck over, because sometime the night before he'd apparently arranged for a house in Glendale to be purchased and refitted to their specifications. After an extreme "Oh, shit!" moment, they went over everything and found that the purchase and modifications surprisingly appeared to be quite sensible and appropriate, and Chuck called Ellie to have that talk. When he'd managed to convince her he was OK (pretty much), Chuck asked Ellie if she could come over and take them to have a look at the house that he'd acquired. Somehow Ellie managed to stifle her need to go ballistic over that and drove over. When they got to the house, the agency's remodelling team was already at work, so they were able to look through the place, and their walk through confirmed what Chuck and Anna had thought when they looked at it on-line, it was actually a sensible choice. As they were looking around, relieved, Ellie said "Chuck?" so quietly that he almost missed it with all the background noise that was going on, but he did hear her, so he turned to her, saying "Yeah El?" "Do you think that there could be room for me here?" "What do you mean?" "What he did last night was the final straw with Devon, I can't inflict him on you, or myself, any more, so I was wondering whether you'd consider letting me move in here with you? He could keep the apartment, we just need to get a team in there to rip out all the extras that we've put in when there's a chance." Chuck looked at her for about twenty seconds and then smiled, gently pulling her into his arms and talking quietly into her ear "Idiot, of course there's room for you, there will always be room for you wherever I am!"

Over the next couple of months, the remodelling team finished the house so that Chuck could move in and start setting up his new life, Ellie broke up with Devon and moved out to move in with Chuck (again), and they established a shop front for Charlemagne Computers Etc to make it appear legitimate enough to be supporting a staff of three (Chuck, Jeff and Anna). Soon after that, Anna and then Jeff put in their notices at their respective cover jobs and joined CCE, and they all settled into their new routines. They had to make sure that they turned over enough client jobs to make CCE look like a viable business, but that wasn't a problem, the three of them were so good that they were turning away more work than they took on. The demand for their services was actually a problem at times as the workload for their "real" jobs (working for the Defense Clandestine Services team that had started out as just Ellie and Chuck) was enough that they couldn't afford to get bogged down in the client work. Jeff and Anna were primarily technically focussed, but their minds were flexible enough to be quite capable of doing far more than that (not as much as Chuck perhaps, but more than most), so they were filling similar analyst roles to Chuck, and to a lesser degree Ellie (as she was rather less technical than Chuck or the others were, her skills were in other areas).

The new CCE had been operating for a few months when Chuck had to head up to his apartment near Stanford to do his final exams, they had been planning on getting rid of it after that, but Anna had pointed out that it could be useful to keep as a local base if they had jobs around San Francisco, and after thinking it over, Chuck had agreed, so he didn't pack it up as he'd been planning to. Chuck breezed through his finals (as everyone had expected), and then went home to L.A. as he had no interest in seeing anyone at the graduation, especially the two who had been a large part of his life while he was there. In many ways, it was a relief for Chuck that that part of his life was done and dusted, because he could honestly say that he was happier with his life for the most part, he had Ellie and his friends, a comfortable enough home, a decent (if not wonderful) cover job, yeah the stupid rules for the Bartek's cover lives still pissed him and Ellie off as they had to keep to the marginal image (not struggling as much as they used to be, but they still couldn't have or do anything that didn't fit into the mould that some tool in the cover bureau had came up with when they were teenagers), but all in all they could live with it.

 **A/N: OK, please remember that suspension of disbelief is a very important thing ;) That being said, THIS Chuck has the same desire to fly as many different and interesting aircraft as possible as Mr & Mrs C Chuck, and he's had six years to avidly accumulate flying qualifications, so his being the only one qualified to fly a MiG-25 in this scenario in this 'verse is possible. (I really wanted it to be the SR-71, but there was no way of writing that into the realms of possibility :o( It's also not outside the realms of possibility that the Air Force would like to get confirmation of the capabilities of one of the fastest operational planes there was when they had their hands on a working model.**


	3. Different Worlds

**With regard to the question about Chuck's identities in the services, Charles Carmichael is his prime military identity, but he has one in each of the four services, they're all around similar ranks, and they're all pilots/aviators, so it wasn't changing his service per se, it was using horses for courses as it were. As to why it's his USAF identity that gets to play with the MiG rather than his USN identity, I was working on the presumption that it's the Air Force that would have dibs on any interceptors or air superiority fighters, and the MiG was being delivered to the USAF Museum. FWIW**

 **Usual Disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, No rights to any characters portrayed.**

Once she'd finished her final exams at Harvard, Sarah was inserted into her first assignment, with the Secret Service of all things? Officially she was placed there to learn about protective services and the way the Secret Service did things, but she quickly learned that the real reason was that being with the Secret Service got her into a lot of places that would have been difficult to access otherwise, and she was being sent on side missions every week or two to make use of that access, to the extent that it was a struggle to keep her "job on the side" hidden from the team that she was supposedly working for.

There was one advantage of Sarah's being on the Secret Service assignment, though, she was out from under the eye of the CIA some of the time, so she had a chance to contact her mother again. Emma cried when Sammie told her that she'd been snared by the CIA, and was furious that Joe was the reason that she'd been dragged into it, just as he'd been behind her own servitude to the CIA over eighteen years earlier. She tried to convince Sammie to run to her so they could disappear together, but Sarah sighed, telling her that it wasn't like it had been fifteen years ago, the CIA would come after them and with the technical resources they had now they WOULD find them. She promised her mother that she'd find a way out of this, but she told her that she'd have to stay in the system and do what they wanted until she could work out what to do. They were both in tears when they finished the call, but what Sarah didn't know was that Emma immediately got back on the phone to call in reinforcements, calling Mary and Diane to tell them that her little girl had been pulled into the CIA and ask for their help to get her out of it.

Things looked bad, because the name that Sarah gave Emma was the name she'd been allocated for the current assignment, and Stephen couldn't find any record of Jenny Burton or her current aliases in the Harvard records. Eventually Sarah had found another chance to call Emma again and Emma got the other names she was using (except Sarah Walker, she didn't mention that one as she never used it to operate under, even though that was her underlying identity now), but she had a different cover name for every assignment and mission, and Graham was doing something strange with her records, so her aliases weren't linked to each other or any central records like everyone else in the CIA and all they could get each time they searched was what applied to that particular name. Even that was too much to tell Emma, though, as she would have been horrified by what her baby girl was being made to do, and how much risk she was facing all the time, so Mary and Diane only told Emma the cliff notes versions of her daughter's service record for whatever name she was using at the time.

Mary and Diane weren't the only ones that weren't prepared to tell Emma what her daughter was doing, because Sarah was ashamed of what she was doing. In the first few months, she'd been forced to have sex with two of the targets she went after because that was the only way she could have gotten out alive, and when she thought about it, she was pretty sure that it had been set up that way. It only took one guess as to which bastard would have been behind that, and at that realisation, she promised herself that she'd never do that again, she'd kill everyone in the place before she let herself be forced to do that again. She managed to uphold that promise to herself, but to do that she quickly accumulated a kill count that was heading towards the highest in the CIA by the time she left the Secret Service detail. That was the reason she called her mother less and less, for fear that if she talked to her too much she'd find out what her daughter had become, and be as ashamed of her as she was herself.

Part of Sarah's problem was that she didn't have anyone to talk to, she couldn't share what she was doing with her mother, and she wasn't close enough to anyone else to really talk about anything. Keeping her distance was easier due to the nature of the people around her, the male Secret Service and CIA agents that she dealt with (and half the ones she was supposed to be protecting) were only interested in getting into her pants, and though she'd let that happen a few times to blow off steam when she was riding the adrenalin high after a particularly stressful mission, they had nothing at all that attracted her (and she hated the fact that when all those tools were making their pathetic attempts at being charming, she so often thought back to one guy). The women weren't much better, most of them, at least, weren't trying to get into her pants, but very few of them were anything but hard arsed robots or bimbos, the only one that she'd enjoyed spending any time with was a young Secret Service agent, Jill Marin, they'd had a few good nights going out clubbing together, even if they were constantly fending off the letches there while they bitched about the losers that they worked with, and for.

Chuck had decided to make sure that Ellie got something special that was her's, to try and make up for the fact that she hadn't been getting what she truly deserved from the family or anyone else, so he'd baited her into a competition which involved completing the simulation exercises for the one plane that they'd both dreamed about, the Blackbird, and he put a plan together and pressured Aunt D into pushing all the associated paperwork through to get NASA's last Blackbird out of mothballs and flight ready in time for Ellie's 25th birthday. When her birthday came, he asked her to come for a drive, and while he wouldn't tell her where he was taking her (in her car), it didn't take long for her to work out that they were heading towards Edwards AFB. When she twigged to that she smiled at Chuck, thinking that he'd gotten her a flight of an F-15 or F-16, but when they got through all the checks and pulled up at their destination, she just stared at him, because there was an SR-71 sitting outside the hangar. When he'd parked her car, he turned to her and said "Happy Birthday" with a grin. Ellie wanted to know how the hell he'd done this, but he told her that WE did some research and found a significant date in the Blackbird's history that rated a commemoration event, and the best way to celebrate that was a flight of the last operational Blackbird. So, seeing that United States Air Force Major Eleanor Charlemagne was one of the few pilots currently qualified on the SR-71 simulator and available, she'd been selected as the pilot for this flight, and United States Air Force Major Charles Gancanagh would be her observer for the flight. Ellie's eyes were shining as she hugged him to within an inch of his life, saying that she knew quite well that "we" referred to me, myself and I, and she loved him for it, then she tried to compose herself before they got out of the car.

Aunt D was there and went with Ellie to "brief" her on the flight as she suited up. When they came out, Ellie and Chuck did the walk around checks on the Blackbird before climbing in to complete the check lists. The rear cockpit was rather cramped for someone Chuck's size, but the flight out to the Air Force Academy to do a flyover and then return would take less than an hour and a half, he could handle it that long. When they took off, Aunt D went to the command centre to monitor the flight as she'd done for Chuck's MiG-25 flight, she also had to lodge the changes to the flight plans that she'd agreed with Ellie in her briefing (but knowing her godchildren as well as she did, she'd already queued up the amendments as she knew what Ellie would demand to be made). Ellie got the same thrill out of taking the Blackbird past Mach 3 as Chuck had with the MiG, and Chuck was enjoying hear her having such a good time with this, but when they'd done the flyover at the Air Force Academy, they didn't turn to head back to Edwards, they kept heading East. When Chuck questioned her about that, Ellie said that they'd been directed to McConnell AFB as it had been deemed that their fuel load would be too marginal for the round trip due to the Mach 3 run over. It sounded logical, but Chuck was suspicious of the change in plans, so when they de-planed for the refueling at McConnell and he went in to go to the bathroom, he sweet talked his way into accessing a computer that he could use to pull up the amended flight plans, and sure enough the amendments had been lodged as soon as they took off from Edwards. When they were back outside he pulled Ellie aside to argue about the changes, but she had at least as wide a stubborn streak as he did, and her response of "Tough titties, the amendments have been lodged and you're the listed pilot for the return run, so get in there!" would have made him laugh if he hadn't been miffed that she'd derailed his birthday surprise for her.

When they were in the air, Ellie switched them to the internal intercom to explain to him that her birthday surprise was wonderful and she'd always remember it and love him for it, but she'd had her chance to take the Blackbird up to Mach 3.3, and she wanted to share that with him because she knew that he wanted it just as much as she did. The noise in the cockpit almost downed out Chuck's soft, emotional "Thanks El", but she heard it, and listening to him whooping when he pushed the plane up to over Mach 3.3 put a grin on her face. Back at Edwards, Aunt D held an impromptu ceremony where she presented Ellie with a certificate that stated that she'd flown the SR-71 (AF Ser. No. 61-7980/NASA 844) at a recorded airspeed of Mach 3.31 with the time, coordinates and altitude of where the speed was logged, and presented Chuck with a similar certificate to say that he'd flown the same plane at Mach 3.35, with the details of when and where that was logged. Before Chuck could step away she stopped him, to present him with another certificate for his flight in the MiG-25 at an airspeed of Mach 3.22, along with the details of when and where that was logged. They had to stand for photos in front of the Blackbird after that, before they could get changed out of their flight suits and head back to Glendale. Ellie was on a high all the way back, looking at their three certificates and talking a mile a minute, and Chuck smiled as he looked at her, glad that this birthday had been a bit better for her.

Two months later, Chuck and Casey were on another special ops mission that went more pear shaped than usual. They pulled their usual stunt of "borrowing" aircraft to get the special ops teams out (after they'd HALO jumped in), but they had a few companies of armoured cavalry incoming, and Casey wasn't qualified on the Kamov helicopter types, so he and Chuck had to switch their usual roles (Chuck piloting the team out and Casey providing cover) in this instance. Casey extracted the teams in a Mil Mi-26 Halo, while Chuck provided cover with a Kamov Ka-50 Hokum, but to do that he had to take out most of an Armoured Cavalry company, and that haunted his nightmares for months. Casey wasn't a touchy feely type of person by any means, but he felt for Chuck after that incident, because he knew that the kid abhorred killing (strange as that was for someone who was already a bit of a legend in special ops circles at twenty one), but the only thing like a gunship in the base that they hit was the Hokum, and Casey had never flown that type, so Chuck had to take it. It had certainly been an eye opener, watching those videos of him taking on that armoured company to make a hole for Casey and the rest of the crew to escape through. Chuck quite rightly ended up getting the Air Force Cross for that incident (to go with the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, Silver Star and Distinguished Flying Cross that he already had, among others, because the kid was all too ready to run into danger to save others), and it set the wheels in motion for Lieutenant Commander Carmichael's promotion to a full Commander.

After the incident with the Hokum, Casey gave a lot of thought to his charge, Chuck and Ellie weren't full time gigs for him, but Colonel Beckman had had him on tap since Chuck was thirteen and Ellie was sixteen to provide protection for them whenever they were in dangerous situations, and with Chuck those dangerous situations were all too common. He wasn't sure what Major Mills was thinking when he signed the two of them up for regular special ops missions, for someone who was supposed to be looking out for the kid, he'd certainly inserted him into a lot of risky operations, because even though the kid kept SAYING that he was no hero, he sure as hell acted like one. He was a natural leader and had a mind like a steel trap, so when things went sideways he'd analyse the situation and get the team working on the best solution ASAP, but whenever someone was pinned down or in trouble, he was usually one of the first ones going in to save them. He'd certainly earned the medals he had, and many more besides. What he did with that Hokum was him all over, he hated killing, but when he was the one who could get them out, he didn't think twice about sacrificing his soul and perhaps his life to save them. If his foolish heroics didn't get him killed, he'd be a great leader one day, as even now battle hardened soldiers twice his age followed his orders without question, because from experience they trusted him to have weighed the options and ensured that what he told them to do would be the safest and most effective path. He still didn't really understand the kid any better than he did when he was first assigned to protect him and his sister, but he did know that what he'd originally put down as weakness wasn't, it was compassion, and his inability to understand him didn't detract from his respect for him (of course he wasn't about to admit that to him or anyone else, or pass up on any chance to bait him).

Aside from the special ops and other missions and Chuck and Ellie's hair raising exploits with the nation's military aircraft, things had settled down a little after they expanded Charlemagne Computers Etc to include Chuck, Jeff and Anna, and a shop front facility to make it look more like a legitimate business. Given that they were all working for their cover company, they could shift the client work around to give priority to their DCS work when necessary, and they could normally manage things so that at least one of them was free to be working on their DCS projects at at all times. Ellie still had to work around her medical career and the workloads associated with that, but it was easier for her, too, because sharing with Chuck again meant that she didn't have to cover anything up at home.

Three of the key features of the retrofit that Chuck had done to the house when he acquired it with his DIA Special Agent authority (they still couldn't work out how he'd done such a precise job of specifying those orders when he was so drunk he was almost comatose) were; a) Secure the house inside and out, it was almost impossible to breach the building, and if someone did, over half the rooms were quite capable of serving as panic rooms for as long as it took for help to arrive. b) The computer and communications (and security) wiring throughout the house meant that, even though they had a dedicated computer workroom/office, they could access whatever they needed from pretty much anywhere in the house. and c) The basement and bunker, he'd had a basement added to the house, which was separated into a number of rooms to give them extra guest rooms, along with a bathroom, gym and games room and hidden in one of the wardrobes was the secure access to the bunker. The bunker had the core ICT systems for both the house and shop front, along with what essentially amounted to an operations centre, an armoury, equipment stores, secure rooms that could serve well enough as bedrooms or cells, and kitchen and bathroom facilities with sufficient supplies for a few people to stay in there for weeks if necessary. Most of the ICT facilities could be accessed from elsewhere in the house (or the shop front), so their DCS work could be done in more comfortable surroundings, but they had a series of blade switches inside the bunker that could physically disconnect pretty much all of the systems from the outside world in seconds if necessary. Between the facilities throughout the house and the bunker, the place served the purposes of the local station with more than enough capacity to serve their team (including Casey and Uncle Bry).

When her stint with the Secret Service wound up, Agent Sarah Walker was recalled to Langley to be given her next assignment. As she strode into the building, very few people saw any sign that she was in anything but total control, but inside she was, if not panicking, seriously concerned. While the Secret Service hadn't been a dream gig, by any means, it had served to keep her away from the worse parts of this life much of the time, and with that gone, she had to wonder how much worse her life and missions would get now. Graham kept her waiting outside his office for well over half an hour past the scheduled time, which just added to the dread that was building in her, but she carefully schooled her face in an attempt to prevent anyone getting even an inkling of what was going through her head.

When she was finally sent into Graham's office, he tried all the standard tricks to de-humanise and belittle the subject, but she didn't slip, she knew that she currently had one of the best success rates in the agency, and her mission stats for the past year were more than some (many) agents did over their entire careers. When Graham would refer to a mission dismissively, she'd counter with the facts that showed that it was a success (not hard, considering that she had access to every detail in her head and she could pull them up with total accuracy), so he eventually gave up (without conceding her successes) and went on to what her next assignment would be. She thought that it was a good bet that Graham had come up with the name (Clandestine Attack Team, CATs, for an all woman team? That was the sort of put down that he'd try), but she saw something in his face when he was telling her about the other team members, DEA Agent Carina Miller, CIA Agent Zondra Rizzo and CIA Agent Amy Rogers, he was pulling something here and it was serious, but she couldn't work out what it was, she'd have to watch her back on this one. Another thing was that, given that she was told that she'd be using Sarah Walker for this assignment, it was a good bet that the other women were using their "real" names too, and that didn't make sense when they were heading into a long term undercover mission, because he told her that this team would be together for the next couple of years at least, until they took down the targets of the operation, there was so much about this that just didn't seem right. There was an up-side, though, they were going to be based in Paris and operating out of Europe most of the time, she'd dreamed of seeing Paris, Rome, Venice, all the sights of Europe, when she was a little girl, sitting in hotel rooms watching documentaries while she waited to see whether her father was going to come back from whatever con he was running, and it looked like she would now. She was being put up in an apartment with Carina Miller, while Zondra Rizzo and Amy Rogers would be sharing another apartment. The meeting ended with Graham all but throwing the information packet at her and telling her that her flight was in three hours and he wouldn't accept any excuses for her missing it (of course, make her sit around waiting on him for ages so that she would have to run like hell to get things together to catch her flight to Paris), he did looked pissed that he hadn't managed to intimidate her the way he wanted to, so that gave her something to hang onto at least.

As the CIA had signed over the apartment in D.C. that they'd set her up in for the Secret Service gig to her to strengthen her cover and she'd set everything up to ensure that all the bills were automatically paid, she didn't have to pack up everything, she just had to grab enough clothes to tide her over until she got herself set up in Paris and whatever other things that she felt she had to have with her while she was over there, so she managed to get packed, secure everything in the apartment and get to the airport before the cut-off for her flight to Paris. At least Graham hadn't put her in cattle class, she'd been pleasantly surprised when she checked in to find that she'd be flying first class. The flight over gave her plenty of time to read the information pack and catch up on the sleep that she'd been sorely missing lately, so she landed at Charles De Gaulle well rested and ready to face what was in front of her. Getting a taxi to the apartment that she'd be sharing with Agent Miller was simple enough, but when she let herself into the apartment, it looked like it had been ransacked, either they'd been burgled or she apparently had the room mate from hell. When she heard the sound of a pistol being cocked, she whipped her head around to see the redhead, dressed in nothing but an open robe and a thong, pointing a gun at her head and she sighed in resignation, she almost wished that they HAD been burgled.


	4. Gai Paris

**OK Wilf, I'll try it for a little bit, but this feels wrong, sorta like a creepy uncle :o(**

 **Sorry Sevenrez, looks like the fun will start next chapter.**

 **Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed etc.**

* * *

Sarah was beyond pissed at that point, so she just snapped "Get that gun off me and put some clothes on Agent Miller! When you've done that we need to talk about this!" as she waved her hand around the mess in the apartment.

Carina Miller put the gun up with a sardonic smile and said "Well hello to you, too, Agent Walker."

Carina turned and sauntered back into her room with that, and Sarah dragged her bag across to the door of what should be her room, drawing a breath before she opened the door as she was expecting it to be like the rest of the apartment. When the door opened, she was pleasantly surprised to find that the room was pristine. She parked her suitcase just inside the door and had a look around, the ensuite was large and well appointed, and the walk in wardrobe beside it wasn't even half filled with the impressive array of clothes in what appeared to be her sizes that already occupied it. The room itself was large, light and airy, and when she went to open the French doors (smiling at herself as she wondered what they should be called here?) to step out onto the balcony, the view of the Eiffel Tower and its surrounds caught her breath.

At that point she was interrupted by a light knock at the door, she came back into the room and a dressed Carina came forward with a smile on her face and her hand extended, saying "Let's try that again, shall we? Hello, I'm Carina Miller, it's nice to meet you Sarah."

Sarah relented with a smile and shook her hand, saying "Hello Carina, I'm sorry about that (waving at the door), it was just a reaction to walking in after a eight hour flight to find that (nodding out the door) and a gun pointed at me."

Carina's mouth quirked as she glanced in the direction of the door. "Yeah, about that, I wasn't expecting you for a few more days and there was a party here last night, I was planning to have the place cleaned up long before you got here."

Sarah grimaced at that as she said. "Well to tell you the truth I would have preferred to have at least a couple of days to get things sorted out for a long term assignment like I've been told this is, but I was given my assignment and told that my flight was taking off in three hours."

Carina matched her grimace "Oh, so the DEA doesn't have a monopoly on bastards, then?"

Sarah shook her head ruefully as she answered. "No the CIA certainly has more than its share of those, too."

They headed out to the living area and Carina gave her a tour of the rest of the apartment. When Sarah went to help her clean up, Carina told her she didn't have to do that, it was her party and her mess, but Sarah said the sooner it was cleaned up, the sooner they could sit down and sort out what they were going to do, so Carina accepted her help with thanks.

When the clean up was done, the two sat down with a bottle of wine and compared notes about what they'd been told about their new assignment. The first thing that they both noticed was that they obviously shared near perfect recall, because neither of them needed to refer to any materials as they were sharing the details of what they'd been given about the assignment, unfortunately the second thing that they noted was that neither of them had been given any useful information about the assignment that they were starting, they knew who the women on the team were, the stupid name that was given to the team, and the fact that it was supposed to be long term, and that was pretty much it.

They were aggravated about how much their superiors were keeping them in the dark about their assignment, but they decided that it would be better if they knew what each other was capable of, so they started comparing stories about what they'd done in the field. Once again, they were surprised about how much in common they shared, the types of missions they did meant that they both had more than a passing acquaintance with the SAD teams and other special ops strike teams, Sarah laughed when she shared the story about how she'd been told that she may yet meet the legendary Mowgli because she had a "difficult" vibe about her, and that led into a long discussion about what they'd each heard about Mowgli, which was a lot because the special ops boys loved to talk about him. Carina actually had more stories to tell than Sarah did on this front, because she'd been in the field for a few years longer than Sarah, and she'd worked with different teams, so she'd heard things that Sarah hadn't. When she told the story about him taking out an armoured cavalry company with a Hokum, that started a whole new conversation thread about whether the Mowgli stories were all true, because some of them seemed larger than life.

Carina had a theory about Mowgli which she though could explain the larger than life angle, because she'd heard at different times that he was an officer in the Army, Navy, and Marines, even the Air Force. She looked up at Sarah when she brought that up and asked. "What if Mowgli isn't one man, it's a group of guys that use the same handle?"

Sarah conceded that it was possible, but pointed out that any descriptions of him that she'd heard were pretty much the same. Carina had to admit that she'd forgotten about that when they were tied up in the story, which in turn reminded her about the fact that she'd been told a number of times that Mowgli nearly always had a partner, an older Marine, a big guy who went by the handle of Baloo.

The Mowgli conversations went on for some time, eventually coming back to the point where they conceded that they didn't know how many of the stories were true or not, but the guy certainly sounded interesting.

Four or five bottles of wine and several hours into their conversation, Carina suddenly sat up, staring at Sarah. "Oh, my, God, you're the Ice Queen, Graham's Enforcer!" It wasn't until she'd mellowed out after a few bottles of wine that her mind had put the titbits that Sarah had been telling her together. Over the past year, a young female agent had been kicking up quite a storm in the intelligence community, the stories were that she was hell on wheels and you had two choices if you were in her way, get OUT of the way, or get dead. Carina just looked at her, they'd just spent ages talking about how the stories about Mowgli were larger than life, but the stories about the Ice Queen were just as out there. Sarah looked back at her for a while, then reached for the bottle to refill her glass as she said "I hate that name!"

Carina looked at her with some sympathy and asked "Which one?", which got her a look from Sarah before she said "Both, but mainly the Enforcer one, I'd love to see that bastard Graham dead!"

When she said that Carina quickly reached over to grab her arm to pull her closer and whisper harshly "Are you crazy? Talking like that about wanting someone like Graham dead? We can never be sure that we're clear of all bugs in here, you should know that!" Sarah gulped and nodded, she'd just gotten way too comfortable talking to Carina and she let it all out, of course the fact that she was plastered didn't really help much either. They looked at each other and non-verbally agreed that they were fine with each other, but it was probably time to wind up the night's discussion before anything more damaging was said, so they cleaned up and headed to bed.

* * *

Things were going well once the team had settled into their new routines. Casa Bartek was formally listed as the Glendale Station (without any location details) in the DIA records, and Special Agent Charles Carmichael was bumped up to Special Agent In Charge for the Station, with Casey being bumped up from Agent to Special Agent at the same time. The official DIA personnel list for the Glendale Station was interesting, because it looked fairly impressive.

Starting with Special Agent In Charge Charles Carmichael, they also had Eleanor Charlemagne, Bryan Mills and John Casey as Special Agents, and Jeffrey Barnes, Anna Wu, John Smith and Susan Jones as Agents (Smith and Jones had to be on the books because they were the identities that Chuck and Ellie were best known as).

As far as their military ranks went, when Charles Carmichael's promotion to USN Commander came through, he was the ranking officer as well, given that Ellie's highest rank was USAF Major, Casey was a USMC Major, Bry was a USA Major, Jeff was a USN Lieutenant and Anna was a USN Ensign, so Chuck was officially in command of the Station as far as the DIA or the rest of the military were concerned.

The majority of the work for the Glendale Station was analysis, planning and cyber intelligence, but they did have some missions which required infiltrating facilities to extract data or other intel, set up back doors in systems or install surveillance systems. The one constant on those missions was Casey and he normally had Chuck or Anna for the technical side, but at times Ellie, Jeff and Bry were involved on those missions, too.

The vast majority of the infiltration missions involved circumventing the security systems and slipping in and out in the dead of night, but sometimes they had to employ subterfuge and use the cover of some function or job to get the access they needed, and these were the most nerve wracking for Chuck, at least.

Because Chuck didn't generally sleep as much as most people, he often put in several hours of work each night. One of the requirements that he'd made for the remodelling was to make the workroom/office (and all the bedrooms) sound proof, so as long as he didn't make too much noise walking down the hall, he could spend as much time working as he liked without disturbing Ellie or anyone else who may be in the house. He'd also planned for these all night sessions and had the workroom set up so there was no need to leave, it had an ensuite, kitchenette, and a sofa bed in case he decided to just lay down and get some sleep while he was waiting for jobs to run, or when he finished.

Chuck spent far more time in the workroom than he did in his bedroom, in fact his bedroom was hardly used. Since the incident with Jill and Bryce, he'd given up on even trying to be social, he'd generally put a full day's work at CCE, then come home and spend most of the night working on their DCS projects.

Ellie was disappointed that she'd never heard from Jenny, because they'd seemed happy together, Chuck at least had been happier than she'd seen him since he was a kid for the short time that they were around each other. She'd actually broken down and tried to call Jenny a few weeks after the party, but when she did her phone had been disconnected.

They all tried to break Chuck out of the rut he was in, Ellie and Anna dragged him out clubbing sometimes, and Jeff and even Casey got him to come out for a drink or something else sometimes, but it was hard work to get him to go along with it.

Anna had a bit of an agenda, though, because she was more than a little taken with Chuck, and kept telling him that even though Jill may have been his first, she wouldn't be the only one for him. It was all the others could do to not laugh at that, because Anna had come into their lives about a month after Chuck took up with Jill, and she didn't know what he'd been doing for the eight years up to that.

Just after Ellie and Chuck's parents had disappeared and they'd been given their new identities and moved to the new town, Ellie was trying to make their cover work and had a sleepover for the friends she'd made since she started school there. A game of truth or dare while Ellie was out of the room had one of the girls slipping into Ellie's little brother's (who was going through a growth spurt and rapidly changing from Chuck the cutie to Chuck the hottie) room to make out with him. When she came out about half an hour later, dazed and happy, the others had wanted to know what'd happened, and by the end of the sleepover, Ellie was the only virgin in the house.

The girls didn't stop talking about it and it just snowballed, rapidly getting to the point where just about every girl he met wanted to have her turn on the Chuckgasm ride. They didn't know whether it was his personality and how gentle and loving he was or what he could do (probably a bit of both), but most of them seemed to fall for him. That went on for about eight years until he met Jill.

Jill was possessive and decided that Chuck was going to be her's, and her's alone, so she made sure that he spent every second possible with her and pulled out all the stops in bed. Chuck had never experienced anything that intense, and he'd convinced himself that he was in love, though he was starting to wonder six months later when it was coming up to his twenty first birthday. After she and Bryce betrayed him the way they did, he just gave up on anything to do with relationships.

Strangely enough, the special ops missions were where Chuck was the most social and seemed to enjoy himself, he'd joke around with the teams and go out drinking with them afterwards. Sometimes he'd even give in and dance with the girls who were trying to drag him out on the dance floor (but nothing more than that, and if they got demanding he'd usually just push them off and leave).

After observing Chuck when they were out with the teams, Casey came to Ellie and asked her to describe the girl he'd spent time with at his 21st party, Ellie described Jenny, but then demanded to know what was going on when a worried look crossed his face at her description. Casey looked down as he responded. "Sometimes when we're out with the guys, he'll look hopeful when he sees someone tall, slender and blonde like you described, but then he'll get quite disappointed when he realises that it isn't the one he was hoping it was, so I don't think he's forgotten about her at all." That broke Ellie's heart, to think that he might have found the one, only to have her disappear on him so soon.

The only other outlet Chuck had was his bike, due to the constraints that the cover bureau put on them, they couldn't be seen to have anything fancy or expensive, so even though Chuck loved driving sports cars, there was no way he could have one (well, he could have stored one somewhere, but having to make sure he wasn't tailed on the way there, swapping what he was driving for the sports car when he took it out and then doing the whole thing in reverse on the way back would do a good job of killing the fun of it). An old bike, though, fitted into the cover OK, so his only transport other than his "work" van was his Harley. Most people could tell that it wasn't stock, but to the untrained eye it just looked like it had the same sort of backyard modifications that most young guys did to their bikes, so no-one flagged it as jeopardising the cover.

What they didn't know, though, was that the latest version of his bike actually cost more than most of the flashier machines did, the motor was a full on big bore RB Racing ORCA TC126 mill with their fuel injection, engine management and 2 into 1 exhaust setups (plus nitrous), and it also had a modded 6 speed transmission and RBR's chain drive conversion swingarm, uprated brakes and suspension. Chuck's bike looked like the sort of thing that guys put together in their garage, and in truth he had done a fair bit of the work himself (with Casey, strangely enough, it was probably the closest they came to bonding), but he'd also spent almost thirty thousand with RBR getting it to the point where he could have some serious fun with it.

With the bike in the garage (or the back of his van where it used to live), if things got too much for him he could hop on it and take off. He was fairly well known and liked at many of the biker bars around L.A. and San Francisco as that quiet kid, Chuck (or Mowgli, he ran into the special ops guys out there often enough and most people just presumed that Mowgli was his ride name when they called him that, so it became common usage), and he rarely had any hassles when he was there (while he could handle himself, he was so likeable that others would usually step in if he had trouble, if Casey or others he knew weren't around to do so). Generally, though, he just got out and rode, and he got a lot of respect from those who saw him ride, because it was rare for anyone to be able to keep up with him if he was working out his issues on the bike.

* * *

Sarah and Carina bonded pretty well after their drunken night of sharing, they still had a few days before the formal initial meeting for the group (Graham had obviously decided to screw her around as much as possible when he didn't get the reaction he wanted out of her, so he must have ordered her flight to be organised after she'd left his office), so they filled in the time shopping and checking out the clubs.

That was where they discovered the first major difference between them, one that came close to destroying their partnership and budding friendship, because Carina always took some cute guy home from the club, and they created issues on the morning after. The first one took the hint quickly and ran after he tried to come on Sarah in their apartment, but the second one thought he was god's gift to women after spending the night with Carina and wouldn't take no for an answer, that is until he went to grab her and pull her in for a kiss and had a carving knife impale him under his chin. Fear instantly wiped the haze of lust from his gaze and he saw quite clearly that he was seconds away from death, the look in Sarah's eyes telling him that she was ready, willing and able, if not eager, to end him then and there.

He dropped her arm as though it was a red hot poker and lurched back so quickly he fell on his arse, continuing to scramble backwards shouting "Qu'est-ce que vous vous faites chienne folle?", only to get cut off by Carina's fist partway through the word bitch. Carina then dragged him to his feet and frog marched him to the apartment door with his arm reefed up between his shoulder blades, proceeding to launch him through the door with enough force to ensure that he smashed his face into the wall opposite and left a smear of blood from there to the floor as he collapsed. Carina turned to speak to Sarah, but caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the wall and realised that she was stark naked, so she ran off to her room to get some clothes on.

When she came out, Sarah was in her room angrily throwing things in a bag, when she tried to speak to her Sarah silenced her with a look which she expected was the last thing many had seen before they died, as she said "I'm leaving, I'll get a hotel room until I can find another apartment or I can get out of this assignment, if I stay here, the next one of your playthings who tries to lay a hand me will go off the balcony, and you won't stop me!"

Carina stepped into the room, pleading with her "Sarah, please!"

"NO! Obviously you can't go twenty four hours without sex but I won't put up with those animals coming after me just because you've decided to bring them home to scratch your itch, I don't plan on having to try to fight off a group of them because you've decided to bring home half a dozen to satisfy your urges!"

"Sarah, I will never bring anyone here again, I promise!"

"Yeah, like I believe that! The first time they don't feel like finding somewhere else, you'll drag them back here because you won't be prepared to miss out on your sex!"

"It's not about the sex!"

"How fucking stupid do you think I am? You drag guys back here to screw them every night!"

"I have sex with them, but it's not FOR sex."

"What the fuck is it FOR then?"

"I can't sleep alone."

"Take a fucking sleeping pill then!"

"That's not, wait, do you remember the things you've had to do when you try to sleep?"

For the first time, she managed to get through Sarah's rage, and she faltered when that registered "Yes."

"So do I, I've been screwed by hundreds of men for this job in all sorts of disgusting ways, and when I close my eyes I see them, hear them, feel them, smell them, and nothing makes it go away. The only thing I've found that keeps it at bay at all is to find someone less disgusting and spend the night with them, yes, I have to screw them to get them to do that, but it usually stops me thinking about the others. It also means that I get a short reprieve from thinking that I need to kill myself to make it go away."

Sarah looked at Carina in horror, horror that was made all the worse by the fact that she could understand what she was saying, but the problem remained. "I'm sorry about that Carina, but if I move out I won't be in your way, you can do what you want, what you need to, without any problems from me."

Carina looked at her in desperation. "Sarah, can we sit down and talk about this, please?"

Sarah searched her face, trying to work out what she was asking, but nodded and sat down on the bed, patting the bed next to her. Carina sat down and was visibly making an effort to compose herself in an attempt to be able to talk rationally and try to convince Sarah to stay. She eventually managed settle herself a little and turned to speak.

"I can't have this assignment fail, if this team falls apart, I'll be sent back to what I was doing before, and I don't think I could survive that again, but if you move out, they will split up the team, and I'll be sent back."

She looked Sarah in the eye. "I meant what I said, I will NOT bring another man back to our apartment, I'll go back to their place or get a hotel room, just please don't leave!"

Sarah reached out and pulled Carina into her arms, speaking quietly into her hair "OK, we'll try to find a way to make this work." At that Carina put her arms around her, whispering "Thank you" as she cried.

When Carina had cried herself out, Sarah asked if she'd tried talking to anyone about this, to see if she could deal with it better, Carina nodded, saying that she'd talked to agency shrinks, but they'd just told her that she needed to get over it. Sarah swore and called them quacks, then made Carina look at her as she told her that she could talk to her, and they could try to find a way to deal with it together, Carina smiled tentatively at her and whispered "Thank you" again.

When they were feeling up to it, they cleaned up the mess in the apartment, and Sarah went to clean the blood etc off the wall across the hall from their door. They didn't go out that day, they put in a bit of time sparring, talked about what they expected to happen tomorrow at the initial meeting in the CIA's Paris Station, and ordered dinner because neither of them was really any good in the kitchen.

After dinner, they cleaned up and put a stupid movie on to take their minds off things, but Sarah could see that Carina was getting herself more and more worked up as the night went on, so eventually she turned to her. "Carina." She looked up. "Yeah?"

"You said that you need someone to spend the night with you, I know it's not the same, but do you think it would help if you slept in my bed tonight?"

"I don't know, maybe, you'd do that for me?"

"If it would help, no problem."

"I'd like that, thanks Sarah."

Sarah smiled and squeezed her hand, but suddenly thought of something. "But no sleeping in the nude, you have to wear pyjamas."

That got a smile out of Carina. "But I don't have any pyjamas."

Sarah was struggling to keep a straight face. "Then you can wear a T-shirt and and shorts like I do."

Carina put on a puppy dog face. "Alright, if I have to."

Sarah finally started chuckling. "Yes, you have to!"

* * *

Chuck was trying to work out whether their current job was a blessing, or a curse. They'd gotten a batch of computers in from one company that had either been fried, or infected with viruses, but looking at the disks out of one machine that apparently blew the power supply before the disks were infected showed them that. a) The company was dirty and dealing in government secrets, and. b) They couldn't just wipe and re-image the disks in the rest of the machines, they needed to surgically remove the malware on all the machines so that they could extract the data and determine the level and nature of the leak.

One of the first things he did was call Aunt D to fill her in on what they'd found and get her to send Casey back ASAP, as what they'd seen so far appeared to indicate that if the people who were after this intel wanted the computers and what was on them, they'd be playing for keeps. After that he put the shop into lock down (they could tell legitimate customers that there was something wrong with the security system and it kept locking the door), and pulled pistols, assault rifles and plenty of magazines for both out of the gun safe and made sure that Anna and Jeff always kept them in reach as well, at least until they had their pit bull there.

With that done, they went back to trying to get the viruses etc reverse engineered ASAP, Jeff was their guru on reverse engineering, so Chuck put him on that job while he and Anna got started on replacing all the fried components, as they had to return the computers in a reasonable time frame or the customer would get suspicious, if worse came to worse, they'd replace all the disks with new ones and send them back that way.

There was another angle that no-one would like so he kept it to himself for now, he'd have to find a way to get into the company and see what else was on their systems. THAT was going to be a fun discussion to have!

Jeff had only been on the job for an hour and a half or so when he started swearing, and when they asked him what was up he showed them the code. When Chuck looked at the screen, he started swearing too, at which point Anna got pissed off and told them to just fucking tell her what they'd found. Realising she didn't have his total recall Chuck apologised and told her that the malware was a modified version of their own code, someone had gotten their hands on the malware that they put in honey pots in sensitive areas of the government networks and had hacked it up a little.

So, now they had an extra job, to determine whether it was someone inside trying to pass their work off as their own, or someone outside who'd managed to get a copy of it (probably by going to a honey pot and getting their system infected) and then modifying it for their own purposes. There was a silver lining, though, once Jeff identified the root code for this, it made the job to reverse engineer it a lot easier and quicker to complete.

Casey turned up about three and a half hours after Chuck called Aunt D (she'd cut orders for an F-15 to be sent to the nearest Air Force Base to his current mission so it was waiting for him fueled and ready and sent a Blackhawk to pick him up straight away). Chuck filled him in on what they'd found while working on re-imaging the computers with the others, as they'd ghosted all the drives once the malware was cleaned off, then did secure wipes on all the disks to ensure that nothing was left on them, so now they had to rebuild the computers to ready them to be returned to the customer.

Making sure the others were out of earshot, Chuck also filled Casey in on the other part of the mission, to convince the customer to give them access to their other systems so they could ensure that the malware hadn't spread further, and when they did get the access to the systems, he needed Casey to distract them while he scanned all the systems for further evidence of stolen intel and copied everything he could. Casey looked dubious about that, but didn't argue.

It took them another hour and a half to image all the systems, and then Chuck told Jeff and Anna that he and Casey would be delivering the computers to the customer. Anna's eyes narrowed as she bailed up Chuck and told him. "Spill, you're up to something and you aren't leaving here until you tell me what!" He really didn't want to tell her what he was doing, but Casey wasn't the only pit bull they had on the team, so he gave in because they couldn't spare the time for him to try and tap dance around her.

When he told her, she went off, as expected, but the surprise was that Jeff supported her position. When Jeff explained that if Chuck was trying to get the rest of the intel out of the systems, Casey would have to install the re-imaged computers and create the distraction on his own, and he didn't have the technical skills to do that, Chuck had to agree, he hadn't thought about that angle when he was trying to work out how to do this without putting them at risk.

That changed their plans, and Chuck had to give in and let Anna come along to provide the technical expertise for the install side of things, because her behaviour and outfits made her the best distraction they had. With that decided, they loaded the computers into the van and headed off to the customer's office. When they got in there, it wasn't too hard to talk up the damage potential of the malware and have them almost begging for Chuck to go through everything else. While Chuck was doing that, Anna was taking every opportunity to be bent over, plugging things in under desks or into the back of computers, so most of the guys and more than a few of the women were focussing on her arse poking out of her short skirt and ignoring whatever Chuck was doing.

Chuck looked over a few times to see how things were going, and mused that at least she'd worn panties instead of the barely there thongs she usually wore. But he couldn't complain, she kept their attention on her and let him go through the systems undisturbed. He did find other intel on the systems and got copies of the "clean" bits (as well as adding some back doors into their systems), he also found that most of the computers with the intel were infected, so he advised the company of the infections and they took the machines away to clean them up and re-image them.

Jeff and Anna cleaned the malware off the new batch of computers, ghosted their disks and then did a secure wipe and re-imaged them like they had the first ones, with Casey and Anna going back to re-install them while Jeff helped Chuck as he got into the Company's network via the back doors that Chuck had installed and started hunting for connections to whoever had commissioned them to steal the intel they'd found. They also went looking for evidence of whatever else they'd been doing and what other nefarious connections they may have.

They'd made inroads into what was going on there, but there was a lot more work to be done, and when they were done there they had to find out who had been stealing and modifying their code, and why.

* * *

When Sarah woke up in the morning, Carina was snuggled up into her back, but she seemed to be sleeping easily, so hopefully they'd managed to keep her demons at bay for the night. It was quite telling that Carina didn't wake when she slipped out of bed, because she'd slipped into a deep, restful sleep.

They had to be at the CAT's (stupid fucking name) initial meeting in a couple of hours, though, so Sarah went to make some omelettes (one of the few things she could do well), calling Carina when they were ready. When she came out with a serious case of bed hair, Sarah laughed and grabbed her camera to get a picture. Carina of course swore at her for that, but was slightly mollified by the breakfast waiting for her. When Sarah hesitantly asked Carina how she'd slept, she got a big grateful smile as she told her that that had been the best night's sleep she'd had in years, nary a demon in sight. Sarah beamed back at her as she said "Great!"

They both turned up for the meeting in stylish but conservative skirt suits, and found Zondra Rizzo in a very similar outfit, but Amy Rogers looked as though she was going clubbing (or had just come from a club), Sarah and Carina looked at each other with raised eyebrows at the sight of her. The Station Chief was the typical over the hill sleaze that the CIA often put in positions like this, he wasn't licking his lips when he looked at them (especially Amy in that outfit), but he wasn't far off it.

It didn't go over too well when the only one who joined in his titillation about the clever name of the squad was Amy, but the others didn't care about what he thought about their sense of humour, they were there to find out what assignments they were getting, and how things would operate. When he instructed them to sleep with the marks to get the intel they needed, Sarah just cut him off, demanding the profiles on the mark and his organisation and telling him that the team would determine the best way to achieve the mission objective. At that he started to bluster and tell her that she WOULD follow the orders he gave her or else, but stopped abruptly (and probably wet himself) when she gave him the same look she'd given Carina the night before and he suddenly remembered that the hot, stunning blonde on the other side of his desk had risen to pretty much the top rated assassin in the CIA in only a year, so he didn't want to cross this woman.

He quickly got all the files she'd referred to, and anything else he thought she may want, out of the safe and handed them across, trying to save face by telling them that he expected this assignment to be completed within the week.

Sarah looked him in the eye with a similar look to what she'd given him before and said "Yes, sir", which had him quaking until long after they'd left his office.

* * *

 **A/N:** **Sorry if Google translate was off,** **"** **Qu'est-ce que vous vous faites chienne folle?** **" is supposedly the translation of "What are you doing you crazy** **bitch** **?", the last time I studied French was 43 years ago and I've hardly spoken it since. Cramming French, German, Latin and Italian into one block wasn't much fun, and as I remember we got French out of the way first.**

 **As a number of people have asked what's going to happen with Chuck and Sarah, here's a snippet of what will be in the story a few chapters down the line.**

 **Sarah looked at the information that Graham had just sent through to her, apparently there were only three people working at this Charlemagne Computers Etc, so with any luck this should be simple and she'd have it done and be out of here by the end of the day. The employees were Jeffrey Barnes, a white male in his late thirties, Anna Wu, an Asian female in her mid twenties, and her mark, Karol Bartek, a white male who had just turned twenty six.**

 **She picked up the doctored laptop that the local CIA techs had prepared for her and stepped out of the car, strategically rearranging her top to ensure maximum effect before** **head** **ing** **into the little shop.** **I** **t only took her a second to identify her target as he was working on something** **at the counter** **with** **his** **head down** **while the other two were talking** **out the back, so she walked up to him.**

" **Excuse me, can you help me?"**

 **The man looked up with a smile, but his mouth dropped open** **the second that** **he saw her.**

 **Her reaction was** **pretty** **much the same, she just stared at him, stunned,** **and** **all she could get out was "Chuck?"**

" **Jenny, what are you doing here?"**

 **Across the country in Washington D.C. Brigadier General Diane Beckman was listening to the feed from the CCE shop front with half an ear as she normally did, but when she heard th** **at** **exchange she** **immediately** **hit a few keys to bring up the video feed from the CCE shop. She stopped, stunned, when she saw that face because she knew exactly who she was,** **blurt** **ing** **out "** **What the** **Hell?" a** **s she** **quickly typed in the commands to put CCE into lock down** **mode** **and initiate a video conference** **to the shop** **.**

 **When Sarah hea** **r** **d the door locking behind her, she dropped the laptop and drew the pistol from behind her back** **in a flash** **,** **aiming it at Chuck as she stepped back** **to keep all three of them in view** **. At that moment the screens around the** **shop** **lit up with image of Diane Beckman** **smiling** **out at them. "Hello Sammie, we've been looking for you!"**

 **Sarah's head whipped around to stare at the screen, as only her mother ever called her that.** **S** **he immediately** **identified the person** **on the screen** **as** **the** **NSA Director, General Diane Beckman,** **but the pistol in her hand never wavered in its aim. Noting that, the General said. "Please put the gun down Sammie,** **I doubt that** **your mother would want to shoot her best friend's son, and my godson."**

 **The pistol didn't move as she responded "Stop calling me that! Only my mother calls me that!" The General smiled gently at that, asking "Who do you think told me your name?" She looked away for a second as she pulled something out of a drawer. "Has your mother ever talked about her friends Mary and Diane?" Sarah nodded and the General held up the picture of the three of them that she'd just grabbed in front of the camera, pointing to one of women, saying "That's Mary, Chuck's Mom, I'm sure you don't need to be told who this is (pointing to Emma), and that's Diane, me."**

 **Sarah lowered her pistol to her side as she asked "What the Hell's going on here?" the General smiled again as she suggested that she** **may like to** **have a seat as it was a long story.**


	5. Cat People

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

When Chuck read the so-called lawyer's letter, he was torn between laughing and wanting to blow the fuckers up, the idiots at the Burbank Buy More were trying to sue Charlemagne Computers Etc for "stealing" their tech services customers, and to top it off, they'd added a sizeable lump in the form of a damages claim for "slander" because they claimed that Charlemagne was telling everyone in the district that the Buy More Nerd Herd was useless.

From the unprofessional and childish wording, it was almost certain that it had been written by someone at the Buy More itself, probably that creepy Indian guy, Patel, who'd been on the Nerd Herd for the last eight years or so, he and the fat fool Big Mike who supposedly ran the place were there when Chuck was doing all the technical work for the Nerd Herd back when he was fifteen.

Chuck stewed over it for a bit longer, then decided that he'd just let his "corporate" duke it out with their corporate, because HIS "corporate" was the United States fucking government. So he scanned the letter in and emailed it to Aunt D with a note to get someone to deal with it. Perhaps the Burbank Buy More would be gone soon, which may be the best thing that ever happened to Burbank.

To move things along, he sent emails to the Charlemagne customers who'd previously been Buy More Nerd Herd customers, advising them of the law suit and requesting official statements from them as to the nature of their engagement of CCE, if it wasn't too much trouble, so he could forward them to the Charlemagne legal team to help them build a counter suit. Within a few days, he received reams of paperwork stipulating how CCE was engaged and who approached who initially, and also formal affidavits to the effect that no CCE personnel had ever made any comments about Buy More or any other "competitor", he sent back (and called to say) his thank yous to their customers who had provided the responses, and sent what he'd received through to Aunt D to be given to the legal team. With that, he washed his hands of the matter and went back to their "normal" jobs of running a small tech firm and handling the United States' military intelligence (or a significant part of it, at least).

Aside from the general intel analysis and planning that they all did, Chuck, Jeff and Anna did much of the high end cyber-intelligence and cyber-security work for the US military and intelligence communities, they didn't do day to day management functions, they analysed cyber-threats, dealt with attacks, established strategies and designed counter measures. Chuck had been common name in hacker circles as the Piranha since he was thirteen or fourteen, and back then he'd been handling the cyber-security etc by himself.

When he was fifteen, he was assigned the task of tracking down and apprehending a hacktivist called Roscoe, who the rest of the government's computer people couldn't get anywhere near. Chuck tracked him down and Aunt D sent Casey to apprehend him, but when they were going to bury him in a black site for the rest of his life, Chuck made a case to make use of his skills (which he'd amply proven were considerably better than anyone in the government except Chuck's), rather than let them go to waste, and that was how Jeff joined the team, because he was Roscoe. Casey was also officially added to the team at the same time (up to that point he was on call, but not officially part of the team, now he was based with the team and only did external missions when they didn't conflict with any team requirements), so his primary function was protective detail for Chuck and Ellie, and to a lesser degree Jeff.

The secondary function he was there for was to oversee and direct their physical training, Chuck and Ellie had a fairly good starting point, because their mother had made exercise regimes a game for them since they were toddlers, so Casey's main function there was to step it up and direct it a little, as well as extend what martial arts and weapons training they had to prepare them for the special ops training they were heading into. When Jeff was added, he was another matter, because as a thirty year old man who'd had spent most of his life in front of a keyboard, Jeff was pretty much a wreck. Therefore, the biggest challenge that Casey had was not to break him (or kill him) with the training, that was verboten. Getting Jeff up to a level where he could survive and succeed at special ops training was a lot of work, and a job that Casey didn't appreciate at all, especially as he was on a tight schedule to get him ready to go into the training with Chuck. Jeff just scraped though, but he did pass according to the requirements of the courses that he did.

When Chuck was twenty, he was tasked with taking down another hacker, the Lotus this time, and it went pretty much the same way as Roscoe had, IE: Chuck tracked her down and Casey was sent to apprehend her. The Lotus was the daughter of a Taiwanese diplomat who'd thumbed her nose at her father by getting US citizenship, only to find that that meant when she got right into the hacking circles and was caught, the US laws applied to her and her father's diplomatic status couldn't do anything to save her, the only thing that did save her was the deal that Chuck made to get her added to the team. That was how Anna was added to the team. As with Jeff, coming into this team meant going through special ops training, Anna's physical condition wasn't as good as Chuck or Ellie's, but she did have an edge in that she was highly skilled in Kung Fu and several other styles. Anna made the grade in the special ops training courses fairly easily, she wasn't as stellar as Chuck or Ellie, but she got through a lot easier than Jeff did.

It wasn't easy for Anna to come into a tight group like that team, Chuck had obviously known Ellie all his life, Casey had had been a feature in their lives from when Chuck was thirteen and Ellie was sixteen (those numbers did her head in, they were kids, even Ellie), and Jeff was added when Chuck was fifteen. So, even Jeff had been an integral part of their lives for five years by the time that she'd arrived, and they were so tight that half the time they didn't have to verbalise their communication. Anna didn't think that she could find her place in a group like this, she was very grateful that Chuck had gone to bat for her the way he did to keep her out of prison and get her on the team, but she just didn't see how she'd fit in.

What she found, though, was that she and Chuck got on pretty much from the start, and just as Chuck and Jeff's skill sets complemented each other, so did her's. It took her a couple of months to work out what Chuck really needed from her, a friend. Everyone (well, except Casey) was really close in the group, and it was a friendly family atmosphere (she was closer to them than she was to her own family), but Jeff was ten years older than Chuck, Casey had another five years on Jeff, and even though Ellie was only three and a half years older than Chuck, she was a mother figure to him, so he couldn't relate to her that way. Anna was the only friend that Chuck had who was close to his age and he could be open with, because he couldn't talk openly to any "civilians". Pretty much from the time he came into this life at thirteen, Chuck had been taking on great responsibility and making calls and recommendations that effected hundreds of lives, and often more than that. The only way to keep handling that was to have a friend that you could unwind with. Chuck didn't base the case to get her onto the team on that, but it was what he needed her for.

* * *

After they left the CIA station, the team went back to Sarah and Carina's apartment to go over the files. Sarah had originally suggested they go to Zondra and Amy's, as it was a lot closer to the CIA Station, but Zondra had a disgusted look cross over her face just before she asked "Is your apartment a total pig sty?" Anger flared up on Sarah's face as she started to bark "No it fucking isn't.." but Zondra cut her off with "Well can we go to your's then, please? Because our's IS!" This time the disgust was obviously directed at Amy, who just shrugged, not caring at all. That exchange made Sarah shoot a sympathetic look Zondra's way as they called a taxi.

Back at the apartment, Sarah, Carina and Zondra had the files spread out and were going through them, but Amy was poking into everything (including Sarah and Carina's rooms) and kept going on about how much nicer this was than their apartment until Carina lost it and screamed "Get out of my fucking room and get over here and help us, are you part of this fucking team or not?"

When Amy came back with a simpering "There's no need to get snippy Carina!", Sarah and Zondra had to physically hold Carina back.

With Amy helping to a degree now, they proceeded to map out their plans for the operation, but when they noted a few things, Sarah and Carina shared a look, because Zondra and Amy appeared to share their capability for near perfect recall. They HAD seen that Zondra only needed to look at anything once and didn't have to refer back to it after that, but at the time they were all being distracted by Amy carrying on like a spoilt teenager and it didn't register.

Now that they were seeing Amy do the same thing, they really had to wonder what the hell was going on. Carina and Sarah started to toss out questions here and there to feel them out on areas that they'd already noticed that they had a lot of similarities, and Zondra saw what they were doing, so as it was around lunch time she suggested that she and Carina duck out and pick up some food for all of them.

As soon as they were outside she grabbed Carina's arm and shoved her up against the building "All right Miller, talk! What are you and Walker up to?" Carina looked at her, then shrugged her hand off her arm and said "This whole operation is someone's science experiment and we're the lab rats!"

The look on Zondra's face made it clear that she thought Carina was crazy "What the fuck are you talking about?" Carina nodded down the street, saying "Come on, we can talk as we walk, seeing as we're supposed to be picking up lunch." As they started out, she shot a look at Zondra and decided to just throw it out there, Rizzo couldn't think she was any more crazy than she did now. "We were watching you up there, you have near photographic memory, don't you?" Zondra nodded and started to ask what that had to do with anything but Carina cut her off. "How many languages do you speak?" "Twelve, but." "What were your scores for seduction school and martial arts, and how many missions have you been on?" "That's classified Miller!" "It's probably in your file, we just didn't look it up before, but it's relevant to this discussion, so what's the answer?" Zondra glared at her, but told her, just as they arrived at the restaurant that they were picking up the food from. Carina chose dishes that would take a little longer to prepare to give them time to talk and they went outside to have coffee while they waited.

Carina started laying out the attributes that she and Sarah had found that they shared, and now it had been confirmed that Zondra shared as well, pointing out how rare things like near photographic memory and speaking a dozen or more languages were, so putting together a team of women who shared these things, as well as a well above average degree of physical ability and seduction skills and a very high mission count where the risk factor was high led to the conclusion that she'd reached, that they were part of a science experiment of some kind.

Zondra mused, what Miller was saying made frightening sense, but there was something that didn't seem to fit. "What about.." "The Bimbo? I don't know, we did notice that she shares the memory, so it's possible she shares other aspects and she's putting on an act to play us, or maybe she'd just a plant for the bastard who's behind this, we'll have to find that out." She stopped and then looked at Zondra. "In case you haven't figured this out, Walker and I are inclined to trust you, but not the Bimbo at this point, if we find we were wrong about that there will be trouble."

That didn't go down to well, so Zondra's only response was "Bring it on Miller!" Carina grinned at her "Oh, I will if it comes to that, and by the way, Walker? She's the Ice Queen!" Zondra's eyes went wide at that, but she remembered the Station Chief's reaction when he suddenly remembered something about Walker when they were in his office, what Miller just said would explain that. She smiled then, there were a lot going on here that she wasn't happy about (any more than Miller or Walker, obviously), but now it looked like it was shaping up to something interesting, at least. Just then their food was brought out and they headed back to the apartment.

While they were eating, they nutted out how they would run this operation. Things got strained when Amy asked why they couldn't just sleep with the guys to get what they wanted like the Station Chief said, and Sarah's response was "Because we're spies, not whores!" Zondra stepped in to break it up, saying that sleeping with marks was off the table for her and she presumed Walker? (Sarah nodded tersely) Zondra looked at Carina to get her position on the matter, and Carina's response was "I'll do it if it's necessary, but only if we can't get what we need by other means." Zondra nodded at that and turned back to Amy, saying "As you can see, sleeping with the marks isn't an option for most of us, so the team will plan to achieve the mission objectives by other methods, like we've been doing." Amy wanted to make something of that, but she realised that she couldn't take any of these women, so she backed down.

The operation went off with hardly a hitch, it would have been none if Amy hadn't been caught up getting busy in the back of the club where they were retrieving the mission objective, but Sarah and Zondra left with what they came for, and Carina went back to collect her drunk "friend" who'd disappeared while she was dancing. The guys there wanted her to join the party, and started to get insistent until she managed to convince them that if she didn't get Amy (she'd used her real name with these guys?) back before her father and his Marine buddies from the Embassy came looking for her there'd be serious trouble, they'd already busted up three clubs when they were trying to find her. Amy did a good job of pretending to be a drunken slut upset to be pulled away from her little party, but the problem was that Carina didn't know how much of that was acting.

They delivered the mission objective three days after they'd been tasked with getting it, but things got ugly when Sarah requested Amy be replaced, or failing that removed from the team. The Station Chief tried to say that no grounds to remove her from the team had been shown, which had Carina leaning across his desk, screaming at him that she'd gone off mission to party with some guys right where they were running the operation, so another team member had to go back in to extract her, and almost got dragged into her little party too.

When the Station Chief smugly said that from what he'd heard, that would have been a normal afternoon for her, Sarah and Zondra had to hold her back from attacking him, though they wanted to do the same. Then he went on in the same tone of voice that no evidence had been shown to support their accusations, so there would be no changes to the team, and furthermore that it would be noted on their records that they were making unfounded accusations against a team member for personal reasons.

Sarah, Carina and Zondra walked out without a word at that, ignoring Amy who was running after them and calling out to them. When she did catch up to them, she tore into Carina "You bitch! Where the fuck do you get off saying things like that about me?" Carina went at her, and this time Sarah and Zondra weren't about to do anything to stop her, Carina grabbed a handful of Amy's mane to drag her up enough to see her eye to eye and hissed in her face. "The next time that happens I'll do what I should have the first time, and leave you there, that's what you deserve!" With that she let go of Amy's hair and turned to storm off and Sarah and Zondra walked away, chatting as if nothing had happened.

After the altercation in the Station Chief's office, Zondra resolved their living arrangement problems in a more direct manner, if Amy made a mess anywhere but in her room, she got a beat down, if she didn't do her share of the work, she got a beat down, if she brought anyone back to the apartment, they both got a beat down and the guy was thrown out on the street, it was like training a puppy, but Zondra's methods hurt more. They also assigned Amy to do off-site support or other minor functions on any missions, not that she was any good at that, but it kept her from getting in the way of the mission. The Paris Station Chief kept trying to order them to involve her in the missions, but as long as they were succeeding (and they were), he and the people behind him didn't have a leg to stand on.

As time went on, the CAT's successes grew, and Amy had managed to change enough for them to accept her as a minor part of the team (they'd never rely on her or really trust her, but she was more involved in missions and her living arrangement with Zondra had been problem free for some time).

Amy had won her way back enough by then to be allowed to come along when they went out clubbing after missions to burn off the adrenalin buzz. Carina and Amy still picked a guy to go home with from the club quite often (more often than not for Carina, every time for Amy), but they didn't take them back to the apartments. Sarah and Zondra would dance and drink for a while, but when the guys started getting too insistent or handsy they'd take off before they felt the need for violence. The usually left together and either got a meal or went back to either one of their apartments for a coffee or a few drinks and to talk.

As with the other areas, Zondra shared Sarah and Carina's tendencies to be involved in the sort of missions that got special ops teams called in, so she had some stories to share, and especially about the legend of Mowgli. Zondra actually had something over Sarah and Carina in that space, as she had actually seen him, and his sidekick Baloo.

"It was when I was working on the organised crime task force, they had a big operation to take down the Travoldi family, but the Travoldis had forked out bucket loads to get themselves an elite mercenary army to protect them, so the powers that be had called in a force of well over a hundred of the best special ops teams to deal with the mercenaries. The force that was brought in was made up of Navy SEALs, Delta Force and Marine Raiders, and it was easy to tell what they were, because everyone else was steering clear of them. There was one guy who didn't seem to fit in, though, because he didn't scream "dangerous" like the rest of them did, he was young, tall, not really big, I mean he wasn't skinny but he was half the size some of those guys were. He was sorta cute and he just looked nice, so he looked out of place among those wolves."

"One of the guys on my team had been working with the special ops guys, so I asked him who the young guy was, but when he answered you could actually hear the awe in his voice when he said "That's Mowgli!", I'd heard stories about what Mowgli had done, and there was no way an ordinary looking guy like that could do those things so I said "No, THAT guy!" and he just repeated "Yeah, that's Mowgli!". I just dismissed him as being crazy. The assault started just after that and I saw him jumping into a Super Stallion with a big guy that I'm sure is NSA and I thought that that would be the last I saw of him, but I was wrong."

"They had the live video feed of the breach, apparently Mowgli had identified alarms and booby traps on the entrance from the roof that couldn't be circumvented from the outside, so they didn't go in that way. They shot out the full height windows on one of the top floor conference rooms with suppressed assault rifles and then he dove out the back of the Super Stallion fifty stories up with a rope to crash through the conference room window, when he went through the window he ended up on the floor, but rolled back onto his feet and trotted across the floor to throw the rope around the leg of the conference table there and use it to haul the fast rope down and secure it. The first guy who came down the fast rope was his sidekick, the big NSA guy they called Baloo, and between them they pulled everyone else off the rope and made sure they were safely on their feet and out of the way of the guys following them."

"Once the load from the first Super Stallion was in the building, they released the rope and it peeled off to be replaced with another one, someone threw a weighted line in that one of them caught, they hauled the fast rope down and secured it and did the same thing all over again. The time it took from when they shot out the window to when they finished offloading eighty troops from two Super Stallions and released the rope on the second to let it leave was less than two minutes."

"Putting those eighty special ops guys in at the top of the building was what made the operation a success, because the teams coming in from the ground floor took a lot longer to fight their way in, and from what we heard afterwards, that was all Mowgli's idea, he'd discovered the alarms and booby traps, determined the best method and location to get in, and then was actually the first through the window himself. He was doing other work in there, too, but we were told it was above our pay grade."

"After that, I stopped doubting the stories about him, the guy's incredible. I wanted to meet him, but we had to process the prisoners and the story was that he only parties with the special ops guys anyway. I just couldn't believe that he looks like a fairly ordinary guy when he's such a bad ass."

Sarah and Carina lapped up that story when they heard it (when Zondra said she'd sorta met Mowgli, Sarah got her to wait until Carina could get home, because she knew that Carina would want to hear it as much as she did. Carina was out the door inside thirty seconds after she called, leaving a VERY disappointed guy who'd thought he was in for the night of his life), and afterwards they were comparing notes about what they knew about him between the three of them. a) he had a sister who was also good enough to get through special ops training. b) he had a sidekick called Baloo who may be NSA. c) he could fly a shit load of US and foreign planes and helicopters, and so could his sidekick, apparently. d) he was young (both from Zondra's description of him and what the SAD guys had told Sarah), and e) for all the things he could do he just looked like a nice, fairly ordinary guy. They shook their heads over at that, it still sounded too much to be true, but Zondra had seen him, so they knew he was real.

* * *

Weeks after they discovered the stolen government intel on that company's computers, Chuck, Jeff and Anna were still tracing the leads from them. It was obvious that they weren't part of any larger organisation, but their links to all sorts of nefarious organisations were proving a goldmine, because a lot of them had been doing a good job of hiding before this.

When a video conference came through from Aunt D at the shop, Chuck presumed that it was about the current investigation, so he locked down the shop and asked her what was up. It was only then that he saw that she had a big grin on her face. It turned out that the call wasn't about the current investigation at all, it was about the so called lawsuit from the Burbank Buy More. When CCE's "corporate" legal team went after Buy More Corporate with a counter suit, using the material that CCE's customers sent through at Chuck's request and other records, Buy More had panicked and offered a big out of court settlement, along with the termination of the people at Buy More Burbank who'd been involved.

Chuck had to laugh at that, and said that he presumed that the DIA's accounts department was happy with the way it went? Aunt D's smile just got wider as she told him that the decision had been made to solidify their covers, and the outstanding costs of Casa Bartek and CCE had been taken out of the settlement, so they were now the property of the Barteks and the people who made up CCE. Chuck looked at the screen, not quite grasping what she was saying "What do you mean?" "What I mean is that your house, Casa Bartek, is now owned by you and Ellie, and everything to do with CCE is now three quarters owned by you, with the last quarter split between Mr Barnes and Miss Wu."

"One thing you may not have realised, Chuck, is that CCE has been a profitable enterprise all the way back to when it was started when you were sixteen, and the way we set up the accounting to protect the cover meant that any revenue has been offsetting the costs accrued to set things up, so the "debts" of the business were more than wiped out before you recreated everything when you moved back to L.A. and set up the house, and the shop with the three of you. With you three operating the way you have been, you'd already made serious inroads into offsetting the new set up costs, and the settlement from Buy More was more than enough to wipe out the rest of it, so the remainder has been deposited into the CCE accounts."

There was something about the look on her face that made Chuck ask her what the remainder actually was. She made a show of looking up the figure before saying "Almost eleven and a three quarters million, roughly, or to be precise, eleven million, six hundred and ninety eight thousand, five hundred dollars, our legal people frightened Buy More so much with the information we pulled out of their government records that they were certain that we were going to ruin them, so they offered up fifteen million to make the problem go away."

Chuck just stared at the screen, asking what they were supposed to do now? She smiled, saying that it was up to them, that was the whole point, this windfall from some idiot's stupidity and greed meant that their cover lives were free and clear, they weren't bound by the whim of the people in the cover bureau, and whatever they made from CCE was their's to do what they wanted with it. Of course, they'd need to pay all the bills associated with the house and CCE now, but that should be a drop in the bucket compared to what they'd get out of things. He thanked her hesitantly and they finished the call.

When the call was finished he turned to Jeff and Anna and asked what they thought? They burst into laughter and asked if his heart had started again yet, laughing even more when he said "No, I don't think so." While he was thinking about this, Chuck wandered out to the front window and looked down the street. At the end of the street they were on, there was a three storey warehouse/office building that had been sitting, abandoned and derelict, for years because it was tied up in an estate battle. Chuck's eye was drawn to the building, because as long as they'd been here he'd thought that it had great potential, seeing as it was on the boundary of the tech business area and a fashionable residential area. He'd always thought that it'd probably be snapped up for an apartment block or something when it was finally cleared for sale, but he realised that now they might be able to actually do something about it with a little help.

With that thought he hurried back to establish a new link with Aunt D. He outlined what he'd like to try if they could swing it and asked if it would be possible to get some help to do so. She looked thoughtful, for all the speed of his reaction, what he'd laid out wasn't a rash decision, and it actually made a lot of sense, for them and the team, so she said she'd make some calls and asked him to send the information through. He finished the call with thanks and pulled up all the information and sent it through (he always researched things he was interested in and the possibilities of that building had interested him for a while). After he'd done that, he belatedly looked at the others and asked what they thought about the idea and they laughed again, and said it was a great idea

With that they went back to chasing down links to see who they could find, and running the business that was now their's, but the fact was, now that they'd been freed from the shackles that the cover bureau had put on them, that business would be changing considerably. When Chuck first started working "for" Charlemagne Computers Etc, he was a sixteen year old tech guru, so the scope of the work was fixing small scale hardware and software issues, the focus and capabilities had changed considerably since then, especially after he'd moved back to L.A. and brought Jeff and Anna into the business, but the cover bureau was determined to keep the nature of the business as a simple computer repair business, no matter what proposals were put forward to expand it or change its focus. Now, though, they were free to start moving CCE into other areas, and he fully intended to do so.

Things changed in the shop after the announcement from Aunt D, and as they were working on the jobs, they were spending a fair amount of time talking about what direction they'd take from here. It was actually Jeff who first floated the idea that maybe it would be a good idea to adopt another name to reflect what they were doing, but when Chuck asked him what he was thinking of, he just came back with "Piranha". Chuck's inclination was to reject that totally but Anna bought into it, pointing out that Piranha had the reputation they needed in the right circles, but it needed more than that, "Piranha Security?" He kept trying to shoot this down, saying that that would bring up images of fat security guards, but Anna was getting pissed off with him because she knew what he was doing and came back with "OK, Piranha Security & Technology!"

That stopped Chuck, because it did fit quite well with what he had in mind for where they were going. When he didn't say anything, Anna looked at him with his "thinking face" on, which meant that he was running the permutations through his head, and that was tantamount to acceptance from him, so she grinned as she turned her head to look at Jeff, and found he was grinning at her, so it looked like they'd agreed on their new name.

About a week after Chuck floated the idea to her, Aunt D came back with what she had. The first thing she asked was what sort of time frame was acceptable for this? That wasn't telling Chuck anything, so he said "No great rush" and asked what they had to go on? She explained that the estate was being contested by a number of parties, some of whom were the government, and furthermore there were complications with that particular property as it was tied up with criminal activities. The people that she'd talked to had advised her that it was expected to be tied up for at least another two or three years or so while it went through the process, and then it could be disposed of through the system. She told him that she'd put all the paperwork through to claim the property for a base for their DCS group as soon as it was free of the process, and that the paperwork to dispose of it to CCE once it had been transferred to them was in the system, the thing that was most up in the air at the moment was what the cost to sign it over would be, depending on property market, it could be anything from five hundred thousand to five million. Chuck thought about it, and realised that holding off for another few years or more wouldn't be the end of the world, they could spend the time working on moving into the fields that they wanted, getting a foot hold and winding down the computer repair side, that could work for them, so he responded. "That will be fine Aunt D, if we're careful with investments it could give us the money we need to remodel the building as well." She looked at him with a raised eyebrow and he said that he'd been thinking about a few options, and sent a few of the tentative designs through to her, some of them made her look at him wide eyed and he grinned, saying that it was pie in the sky at the moment. She smiled at him and said that she'd let him know whenever any news came through before she finished the call.


	6. Betrayal

**Usual Disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

* * *

The fall out from the Buy More debacle was a hoot, first Big Mike took up with his childhood friend Morgan's mother and they all moved to Florida to start over after he got fired. (That was actually a relief because Chuck had always dreaded running into Morgan, when they were little kids they'd been best buddies, but Morgan never grew up or got over that (even though they'd gone their separate ways long before Chuck's parents disappeared), and running into him around town was always the recipe for an embarrassing situation, if not something worse, because he'd be calling out Chuck's real name instead of the name he'd been using since he was twelve at the top of his voice and nothing could shut him up.), and Harry Tang reportedly left town as soon as he was fired too. Then when Patel was trying to get another job, people looked into his records and they found out that he was actually an illegal immigrant, so he was deported and sent back to Canada for good.

Finally, there were the shenanigans with Big Mike's replacement, Emmett Milbarge had been somehow flagged as Buy More's efficiency expert, and Buy More was panicking about anything else going wrong at the Burbank store, so they put him in as the Burbank store's new manager to straighten the store out. The problem was that Milbarge was an even bigger head case than the rest of them, the guy was certifiable. Within a month or so, they were facing a string of potential lawsuits because of what he'd said and done, so they hid him away in a store up in Anchorage or Fairbanks or something, anyway somewhere in Alaska where no-one would ever find him, hopefully.

After that, Moses Finkelstein talked one of his best store mangers into coming out of retirement to get the Burbank store back on track and repair Buy More's image. Since then, Burbank had become a model store, the staff straightened out or were gotten rid of, sales went through the roof and people flocked to store. The Burbank store no longer provided Buy More's equivalent of the "People of Walmart" images, which of course was good for both Burbank AND Buy More.

Changing Charlemagne Computers Etc into the business that they wanted wasn't much easier for Chuck, Jeff and Anna though. Even though they wanted to get away from the computer fixes and installs, that was the bulk of their business and what people came to them for, so just dropping that would raise too many questions, not to mention the fact that Chuck didn't want to leave their long term customers in the lurch, especially when they'd come through for them the way they did when the Buy More "lawsuit" came up.

That was why they had to take a gradual approach, and ever so slowly evolve into the line of work they wanted. People respected them, so when they said that they could handle the security and other systems that were needed, they took them at their word and gave them the work, and the reputation that they were building for the more serious work was getting them more calls to do it, but it was just going a lot slower than any of them would like.

A benefit of that was that the more serious areas that they were moving towards paid a hell of a lot better than the general computer work, and between that and the investments that Chuck was carefully getting into (with advice from Ellie and the others), their funds were growing quite nicely. At this rate they'd have more than enough to do the most ambitious remodelling they'd come up with on the building by the time they had it in their hands.

Of course, they still had their two "regular" jobs to do (CCE and DCS), so the time they could devote to re-imaging their business was limited.

* * *

Since that blow up over the guy that tried to make a move on Sarah that morning, she and Carina had become quite close, like sisters, they developed a trust and level of dependence on each other that they didn't extend to anyone else (though Sarah's trust was tempered a little by the way that Carina's apparent need to throw out the plans and improvise on missions reminded her of her father's tendency to do the same things in his cons, and the choices and consequences that had been forced on her as a result of his misplaced confidence in his abilities).

They didn't talk that much about their early years, but being around each other all the time meant that they picked up quite a lot about each other when they let things slip. It wasn't that much of a surprise for either of them to discover that they were both only a couple of steps away from their European origins (Poland for Sarah, Sweden for Carina), as they'd hear each other habitually muttering in the tongue of the old country often enough, a habit they'd picked up from their mothers.

Nor was it a surprise that their lives of crime before joining the CIA were just as much a shared experience (they'd seen each other do things on missions that screamed what their backgrounds were to each other, because it wasn't the way they were trained to do those things at the Farm, it was a display of skills that they'd learnt in the real world). No matter how close they got to Zondra or anyone else, these secrets remained between the two of them, because slipping up about their own past could expose the other's as well.

Because of Sarah's trust issues and the way she'd been trapped into this world, it didn't take too much for Carina to convince her to help her skim the takings from some of their missions here and there to give them the resources to properly set up the safety nets (some private, but mostly shared) of safe houses, identities and stashes that they'd need to give themselves escape routes if and when everything went to shit. Once they had the funds where they could access them and had set up identities etc, they both took a little free time off while on missions to hunt out good locations for safe houses, stashes, safe deposit boxes etc and establish them if what they found met enough of their requirements.

They'd also charmed the CIA analysts and tech support guys into doing them favours and setting up secure computers, communications systems, accounts, identities etc for them for their private use off the books. Sarah felt a little guilty using the guys that way sometimes, but at least she kept things to a friendship basis with them, so it didn't feel as much of a betrayal as it would have if she'd snuck them off to a supply room for a quick screw like Carina tended to do when she really wanted something.

Anyway, the result was that they had bolt holes and resources spread through Europe, North and South America, as well as some through Oceania, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and helped each other maintain their safety nets. One thing that they shared between them was a group of identities and pipelines for getting in and out of the US from Canada and Mexico without detection. They traded off the usage (and thereby maintenance) of those IDs and pipelines between themselves, though Sarah used the pipeline from Mexico into Southern California more (to check on her mother, or more to the point, to sit in her car for an hour or so in hope that she could see her mother from afar before she went back to the world and deeds that her mother would be horrified about if she knew), and Carina used the pipeline from Canada into New York more, as she had family there she checked up on, too.

Sarah and Carina were pretty close physically and colouring-wise, so they recorded details for the shared identities that were halfway between the two of them and modified their attributes to bring them closer to that point (eg Sarah de-emphasised her bust while Carina wore padded bras), then they made a point of mixing up hairstyles, hair colour, makeup etc all the time to mask the minor differences in their appearance and make it easier to swap back and forth, one of the hassles they had was the need to record the names and images of the customs and border officers that they dealt with each time, so that they could try to avoid going to the same ones too often (to ward off the chance of someone noticing that there was a difference).

Of course, they both knew that the other had separate resources that they kept private, but that was the nature of the game, they'd had it drummed into them throughout their lives that you could never totally trust anyone else, and therefore neither of them ever showed all of their cards.

For all of Amy's brainlessness, the team worked well, because Amy was competent enough to fill in the holes and the other three were at the top of the game (Carina and Zondra may not be in Sarah's league, but they were at least as good as anyone else). The CATs quickly made a name for themselves, not as the bimbos that they were expected to be, but rather as one of the more effective teams in the business, and their success rate was a surprise to most of their superiors.

Given the nature of their missions, much of the time they were solo or paired up (Sarah with Carina and Zondra with Amy) to cover the different elements of the operations in different locations, so they often only all came together at the start and end of missions and when there was a major strike, but they were generally communicating unless they were undercover or madly chasing the mission objectives (so they were working together, just not in the same location).

Due to the mixed affiliations of the team members, their missions were spread over a wide range of operations, taking down drug lords and cartels, weapons dealers, human traffickers, international crime families, people dealing in government secrets of the US or its allies (or the ones it cared about at that moment anyway), whatever the powers that be wanted them to go after. As the CAT's successes and reputation built up over time, they were allocated more and more serious missions, as their detractors were overruled by those who could actually recognise the potential of what they were seeing in their mission reports. Given the formula was obviously working for the team, the powers that be just kept giving them higher profile missions, as long as they kept succeeding with their missions.

After about a year and a half, the CAT Squad was riding high, and even with Amy's less than stellar contributions and tendency to create problems because she couldn't keep her pants on they were pretty much the top rated team in the US intelligence community, and their reputation with the other intelligence communities was right up there. That was why they were given the assignment to take down the Gentle Hand, and the man in charge of that organisation, Augusto Gaez.

* * *

For all the demands of living "in the real world" and delivering to the needs of CCE and the DCS, Chuck was still doing special ops missions every month or so (with Casey of course), and that was usually the only time he got his flying fixes in, too, other than when he got an supersonic jet laid on for him to get across to Washington or whatever to deal with something in a hurry or he managed to get qualified on a new aircraft. The sad thing was that when he was doing that was pretty much the only times he felt alive.

To anyone who knew what he was doing and achieving, Chuck was leading an amazing life, his part of the display wall in the Bunker at Casa Bartek showed more news articles about operations, awards of rank, certificates of achievements and medals than most people could hope to achieve in a lifetime, let alone by the time they'd reached twenty three, but the way he felt was more in line what the majority of people saw, a workaholic homebody who's only relief from the grind was to get out for a ride on his bike, and many thought that it was surprising that he'd do anything as dangerous as riding a bike.

The others still tried to get him out or his shell, but one night Ellie really put her foot in it when they were out clubbing with Anna. Ellie had obviously been drinking a lot more than they'd thought (there didn't seem to have been any opportunity for anyone to slip a ruffie into her drink), because she went to town on him when he tried to get Anna to drop the subject after he'd peeled a pushy girl off him and sent her on her way.

"Yeah Chuck, why couldn't you show her a good time, it's hardly like you haven't done it before, is it, HeHo?" Anna was surprised by the look he sent Ellie's way, as it was the most anger that she'd ever seen him direct at his sister.

"Really El, do you need to bring that up now? That's all in the past!" Ellie saw Anna looking from one to the other of them, trying to work out what the hell was going on.

"Oh that's right Anna, you don't know about this side of Chuckles, do you?" Chuck cut her off with "Ellie!" but Ellie waved him away and continued.

"You see, my baby brother wasn't always the born again virgin that you know and love, for about eight years he was the biggest slut in California." "Ellie, Please!"

Ellie pointed her finger at him, shouting "No! Through High School and College I couldn't talk to my friends because you'd slept with just about all of them and all they wanted to talk about how wonderful what you did to them was, or how much they wanted a chance to be with you! That was the only good thing about that bitch Jill, she took you off the market so I didn't have to hear about it any more!"

At that she threw her arms around his neck and slurred in his ear. "But I'm sorry that fucking skank broke your heart Chuck, I never wanted that to happen to you!"

She gave him a sloppy kiss on the cheek and continued. "I just wish Jenny hadn't disappeared, I tried to contact her when we got back but she'd vanished off the face of the earth!"

Chuck hugged her and said quietly "Yeah, I wish she hadn't disappeared too."

He took in the confused and angry look that Anna was giving him and said "Well I guess that's it for the night, are you coming home with us?" Anna just nodded, tight lipped, as she was afraid what she might say if she spoke, and picked up her and Ellie's purses to follow Chuck and Ellie as he walked her out. She did manage to note through her anger how effortlessly Chuck supported about 90% of Ellie's weight as he walked her out, making it look like he was just gently guiding her when he was all but carrying her.

In Ellie's car on the way back, Anna looked over at her sleeping in the back seat and then turned her attention to Chuck. "So, HeHo?" Chuck grimaced "Yeah, it's been a while since she brought that up." Anna just kept looking at him without saying a word.

"When we first got our new identities and moved to Arcadia, Ellie was trying to fit in and had a sleepover party for her friends, one of the girls was dared to go and make out with me in a game of truth or dare, and, well, it went a bit further than that, after she went back the other girls came in and wanted their turn, and it all went on from there. I guess in my pubescent fantasies, this was normal, and afterwards, well I couldn't say no when girls were asking and it made them happy, so I kept going."

Anna's look was more confused than angry now. "How old were you?"

"About twelve and a half, but I was tall for my age, so I guess I looked older."

"And how long did this go on for?"

"About eight years, until I took up with Jill at Stanford, she was my first, and only, girlfriend, really."

Tears were running down Anna's face as she asked. "If you were doing that for eight years, what's so wrong with me that you rejected me after she dumped you?"

Chuck reached over to grab her hand. "There's nothing wrong with you Anna! After Jill did what she did, I haven't wanted to have any sort of relationship with anyone, and your friendship is too important to me to risk screwing things up between us!"

The tears abated a little, but continued as she asked "Who's this Jenny then?"

"Honestly? I don't know, she was at my 21st over in Massachusetts, she was one of Devon's brother's dates. She spent much of the night talking to Ellie and me, she was nice, but later on she got drunk and kissed me, well we sort of made out, and then she got embarrassed and ran away, she apparently got one of the other girls to give her a lift home and that was the last I saw or heard of her."

"Why were you and Ellie talking about her like she was the one that got away then?"

"What? I wasn't.." Anna looked at him. "I don't know, I liked her and I'm pretty sure she liked me, we had a connection of some kind, but like Ellie said she's disappeared, so I'll never know if it could have gone anywhere."

"Did you want it to go somewhere?"

"I don't know, yeah, I think so, it felt so right with her, more than it ever did with Jill or the other girls."

When they got back to Casa Bartek, Anna helped Chuck get Ellie changed into some sleepwear and put her to bed, but when Chuck told her to take his bedroom as he'd be catching up on projects in the workroom, she asked if he'd stay with her. When he started to tell her that he couldn't, she started to cry again.

"Please Chuck, I'm not asking for sex, you've made your position on that clear, I just need you to hold me tonight, do you care enough about me to do that?"

He pulled her into his arms and whispered "Of course" into her hair. He kept his arm around her as they walked to his bedroom, they stripped down to their underwear and then they settled into each other's arms to have the best night's sleep that either of them had had for a while.

In the morning, a bleary eyed Ellie almost dropped the pan in her hand when Anna walked into the kitchen in the same dress she'd been wearing the night before. She was looking from one to the other, biting her tongue to stop herself asking the question that she was dying to ask, but she was being so obvious that she didn't need to actually say it.

Anna looked at her and shook her head "No, HeHo's still a born again virgin, he just held me last night because I needed it."

Ellie looked at her, horrified, "I didn't?"

Chuck wasn't looking at all pleased with her as he said "Yes, you did El, you told Anna and everyone else in earshot that I was the biggest slut in California for eight years."

"Oh Chuck, I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me!"

Chuck put his arms around her and told her not to worry, as it was done now, then he told them that he'd see them later as he needed to clear his head, and kissing them both on the forehead he headed out to the garage to get his bike.

It seemed to take a few minutes for the echoes of his exhaust barking as he opened it up down the street to die down.

* * *

When the CAT Squad was assigned to take over the operation to go after the Gentle Hand, it was a major accolade as the organisation was attracting a lot of attention from the various organisations around Europe and the rest of the world (as it was carving a bigger slice out of the markets that it was moving into all the time), but those organisations hadn't had any luck tracking the Gentle Hand down as yet. The task force was concentrating on the Hand's European operations when they were engaged, as that was where most of the activity was (even though Gaez was actually based in Rio).

The CATs got a few runs on the board quickly, and they were getting better results than those they took over from, but it didn't take long before they started seeing similar patterns, every time they got close to Gaez or his Lieutenants, something would happen and they'd disappear just before they could be apprehended. Given that this type of thing had been happening before the CATs came on board, they presumed that the leak was from part of the team that they'd acquired when they took over, so they were running an investigation of everyone in the team in conjunction with the primary hunt for Gaez and his lieutenants.

They were running investigations into all the offices and personnel of the task force, and they were so desperate for something concrete that none of them stopped to question the fact that AMY had been the one who'd turned up communications coming out of the Milan office and identified suspicious transactions in the accounts of two of the men in the office, but she was working that area solo because it was supposed to be low priority.

Sarah, Carina and Zondra were worried when she told them that the two men had died under interrogation, and were even more frustrated when every lead that they'd gotten turned out to be a dead end. They tried to tell themselves that the silver lining was that the leak had been plugged, and now they'd be able to catch the players in the Gentle Hand, but within a month that hope was quelled as the Hand was obviously still being tipped off about where they were going to hit next.

The only thing that they had going for them was that, while they kept missing Gaez and his lieutenants, they didn't seem to be getting as much notice as they had before, so while they did have time to run, they didn't have the time needed to clear out the resources or product at the locations that were being hit, so the team were managing to impact the Gentle Hand's operations, and the analysts were getting leads on other parts of the Hand's network when they went through the computers and other information captured when they took the sites.

As the task forces successes grew, the hand's resistance was getting more violent and desperate. They co-opted NSA, SAD or military strike teams in for every raid now, and they decided that it was too dangerous to run solo operations any more, so at a minimum they'd work in pairs. Sarah and Carina noted that the success rate of their raids went up after the solo operations were finished, but kept that to themselves.

They kept hitting the Gentle Hand's locations and slowly tightening the noose, until they got what appeared to be a break when they got news that Gaez and the Hand were trying to broker a deal with another group to get the extra manpower they needed, and because of the level of the ones they were meeting, Gaez and his Lieutenants all had to be there. They called in extra special ops strike teams to deal with the expected force there and the full CAT Squad were there for what they were hoping would be the last act of this show.

The teams breached the warehouse from all sides, but the other side were hiding in heat shielded crates until they were committed and then they burst out of their hiding places and attacked. Sarah, Carina and Zondra hastily made fortified positions with their teams and tried to fight it out, even though they were overwhelmingly outnumbered. Amy disappeared in the opening fire fight, and they presumed that she'd been taken out. As well as the sizeable force of ground troops who were advancing at them from all sides, there was a large contingent of snipers up in the rafters, and they were picking off the men in their teams as soon as they popped up to engage the forces on the floor. Sarah and the other marksmen were trying to pick off as many of the snipers as they could, but that meant that the others had to protect them from the ground troops while they did so.

When she could, Sarah checked to see how Carina and Zondra were doing, and was glad to see that they appeared to be holding out OK. Her own position wasn't as promising, she'd lost nearly all her men and was running out of ammo, so she was having to be very selective with her shots. When she finally ran out of ammo, one of the last two men she had left threw her some magazines, but a sniper got him when he exposed himself to do that. Sarah slapped a magazine into her assault rifle and took out the sniper, but it was too late for her man.

She was down to less than one full magazine for her pistol when she lost the last of her team, and she knew she had at least a dozen waiting for her out there, at least Carina and Zondra were still there, still fighting with part of their teams. She stopped firing, trying to lure them in so that she could get as many as possible before they took her down, and she could see from the movement out there that that tactic was working. When the closest ones were within ten or fifteen yards, she burst into action, popping up to take out the five or six nearest to her and jumping over the barricade in front of her to race out to try and grab the weapons of the ones she just shot. As bullets starting flying past her, she dove, sliding across the floor and scooping up the assault rifle that the guy had dropped as he fell to return their fire.

The problem, of course, was that she had just about no cover out here, luckily the man she'd killed to get his rifle was big, so she could hide behind his body, but even though there maybe only be half a dozen or so left, she was in an untenable position, or at least she was until someone charged them from the rear. Her rescuer took out five of them as he ran, and she shot the last two in the back of the head when they turned to face him. Sarah grabbed some magazines and was about to head over to help the others when her rescuer scooped her up and dragged her back behind the barricades.

When they were behind cover, she turned to her rescuer and said "Look..." He glanced at her "Mills" "Look Mills, I really appreciate the rescue, but we need to get over there and help them!" He looked at her. "No, we don't, they're in a lot better position than us and they've almost taken out the ones facing them, so we need to hold out here until they can get over here and help US!" She looked over and realised he was right, the troops facing Carina and Zondra were almost gone, and obviously they still had the men and ammo to be putting up a serious fight. Sarah turned to say that, but she couldn't get past her pride to do so. She took him in for the first time, this wasn't some young hot shot like she'd expected, he had to be in his fifties, but he'd charged across the open floor and took out most of the ones she was facing, giving her a chance to get the rest. She'd have to apologise and thank him properly when the bullets had stopped flying.

Sarah was about to ask him what the hell he was doing when he put his assault rifle down, until she saw the field dressing and bandage in his hand and looked down to see the hole in her leg and how much blood was on the floor. She looked at him bandaging her leg until he looked up and pointed out that one of them should be keeping an eye out and she got back on the job. Now that the adrenalin was starting to wear off, she realised from the pain in her arm that she'd also been clipped there, and her chest and shoulder were hurting because it felt like she'd caught something like a dozen bullets with her vest.

When they finally took down the last of the opposition, Carina ran over to see how Sarah was while Zondra and the rest of their men handled whatever was left alive of the opposing forces and checked to see who was alive out of their guys who had been shot. Mills checked Sarah's men, but they were all dead, so he hoisted her up and supported her as they crossed the floor to where they had a field medic treating the other guys who had been shot.

They'd come into that building with over a hundred men, but now there were less than twenty, including the three of them. No, four, when Amy picked herself up off the floor Sarah and Carina looked at each other, she was pretending that she'd been knocked out, but it was obvious that she'd hidden and let her men be killed, they had to do something about her, there was no way they could ever rely on her, or stomach her, again after what she'd done.

As Sarah was being patched up, she talked to Bryan Mills, or Bry as he said to call him, there was no question that he'd saved her, and risked his life to do so, but the reasons he was giving didn't wash. The line he tried to give her about her reminding him of his daughter may have been cute, but it wasn't the truth, he had an agenda for saving her, but for the life of her she couldn't work out what it was. She was grateful to Bry Mills, but she had to find out why he did what he did.

In the post operation review, they had to address the elephant in the room, the intel they were given about Gaez's meeting was false, and it had been purely a ruse to draw them into a trap. Which meant that someone still on the task force had set them all up to be killed. They went over the communications logs for the week leading up to the operation, and found a number of transmissions that didn't match their normal patterns, the last just before they'd breached the warehouse, so they scanned all the equipment again, and found a hidden transmitter in the heel of one of Zondra's boots.

Zondra was ready to fight this out, but Sarah caught her eye and shook her head infinitesimally, darting a look in Amy's direction. The thing was, with her memory, Sarah remembered exactly who'd been wearing Zondra's boots on the dates of the transmissions, and it wasn't Zondra. Sarah looked at Zondra again, and she gave a barely perceptible nod to say that she'd play along, which Sarah matched. Zondra was taken into custody while the investigation was conducted, but as Sarah knew that someone would make certain that they would discover suspicious transactions, she and Carina called all their best computer techs to ask them to do an off the books investigation for them, to find ALL the details about the transactions that were made to Zondra Rizzo's accounts, and also to look into the transactions on any accounts that Amy Rogers had.

Sarah was surprised and disappointed when the one she regarded as the best the CIA had told her that the CIA didn't have anyone who was capable of doing that, but picked up when he went on to say "But I know someone who is, the DIA has someone who was, is, a legend in the hacker world, the Piranha, and if you're sure your friend is being framed"

"Yes, she is!"

"I know that he'll dig up the evidence to clear her, he's a real sweetheart like that, he'll always help someone out when they need it."

"If you can get the evidence I'll really owe you!"

"Well actually you'll owe him, but never mind, I'll get the information across to him and see what he can come up with."

"I know I shouldn't push, but time's a factor here, she's been taken into custody and as soon as they find what they regard as evidence against her, she'll disappear."

"OK, I'll call him now."

"Thank you Pete!"

"No problem."

While they were waiting to see whether this Piranha would come through, Sarah and Carina were collecting every bit of security footage that they could to prove who was wearing those boots at the times that the transmissions were logged. They also dug up what they could around the Milan office about the two men who died in interrogation, as it was fairly obvious they'd been framed too.

It was less than 24 hours after Sarah's phone call when she got an email from Pete that had all the records to show that the transactions in Zondra's account had been fabricated, and that they actually originated from the same accounts as the much larger payments into the accounts that were traced back to Amy, Pete was right, that guy was amazing!

Not trusting the CIA to do the right thing, Sarah called meeting of all the parties to the task force to discuss the evidence that had been discovered about the leak. She knew that that move wouldn't be taken well by Graham or his cronies, but all the parties to the task force lost people in that warehouse and the other operations, so they couldn't be shut out of this. She also knew that the evidence she was expected to find was what had been planted, so it would be interesting so see how people reacted when they saw what she was going to present.

Carina had arranged for a security team made up of the guys who'd survived the warehouse to be on hand for the meeting, to ensure that no-one decided to get rid of witnesses to protect their stories. As expected, the head of the "investigation" laid out the planted evidence and Graham wanted to go straight to punishment for Zondra, but Sarah raised the fact that they had other evidence, and laid out everything that they'd put together. The one heading up the "investigation" tried to shoot down what they'd presented but the others in the meeting overruled him, especially when Sarah said that they were welcome to get any of the evidence her sources had found confirmed independently. The final straw was when the NSA took Amy into custody and Amy was dragged out, screaming abuse at them that amounted to a confession of what the evidence had shown.

After the meeting, Sarah, Carina and Amy were called into the Paris Station Chief's office and advised that the CAT Squad was being summarily disbanded because the team had been deemed a failure as none of them had been able to recognise the fact that one of them was a traitor. He hedged around a threat that if their agencies didn't have such a significant investment in them they'd be disposed of, but it had been decided to try to get some use out of them to recoup that investment. He informed Carina that she was expected to report to her superiors at the DEA at 0900 the following day, and told Sarah and Zondra that they were to report to their CIA superiors in Langley at the same time, and then dismissed them. They collected their tickets and travelling papers on the way out of the station.

Given that they all had to be on a plane in a few hours, they went straight back to their apartments to pack, organising to meet at the airport for a drink or five once they were checked in. In the airport bar, once they'd scared off the idiots who thought they were there to be picked up, they exchanged enough contact details to ensure that they could find each other when they wanted to (near perfect memories made that an easy task, they just told each other what how to contact them) and then spent the rest of the time up until boarding drowning their sorrows.

When Sarah went into Langley for re-assignment, Director Graham informed her that she would be partnered up with an agent that he'd selected for her, and cut her off with a "No!" when she started to ask whether any other options were available. Then Graham told her that her new partner was Bryce Larkin, and called him into the office. Sarah thought about what she'd heard about Larkin as Graham waxed on about what a great team they'd make, Larkin had the reputation of being Graham's Golden Boy, often successful, but too erratic to be trusted by many operational personnel, yes, he came out of most missions smelling like roses (and given all the accolades), but that, and the casualty rates of others on those missions due to his grandstanding and sloppy work meant that most didn't want to work with him. Yes (she mused) he was attractive, almost as attractive as he obviously thought he was, but being his partner was likely to be a dangerous business. She was going to have to play this very carefully to survive it though, so she plastered a smile on her face and nodded at the applicable points as Graham went on about about what a great team they'd be, and how he expected great things from them.


	7. The Andersons

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

* * *

When Anna turned up at the shop before Chuck, Jeff knew something was up, because Chuck was nearly always in long before either of them, so he just came out and asked "What happened?" Anna looked at him, confused, and said "Chuck's gone somewhere to clear his head." She hesitated and then asked "What do you know about HeHo?" Jeff winced "Ellie must have been really drunk last night, huh?" "Yeah, I don't think I've seen either of them that angry before." Jeff looked at her for a while and then waved her to take a seat.

"This is really their story to tell, and I've got the early parts second hand because I wasn't there, but I'll give you the cliff notes version. When their parents were sent into hiding, Ellie and Chuck were given new identities and moved to Arcadia, because it was a better area with great schools. Ellie apparently thought that it was important to try to act like a normal teenager, so she had a sleepover for the friends she'd made soon after they settled in. She introduced Chuck to them as her little brother, but he was already close to my height, so the girls apparently thought he was around their age and cute, so that made him fair game in their books. Anyway, something happened."

Anna cut in at that point to tell him that Chuck had told her that he'd slept with Ellie's friends that night, Jeff nodded and continued. "Yeah, well apparently he made quite an impression on them and they told all their friends, because he started getting girls coming after him to see if the stories were true, and he became quite the hot commodity as a teen heart throb."

"It was still going on a few years later when he took me, Roscoe, down and I was added to the team, Ellie was getting angry a lot because she didn't seem to be able to talk to anyone without the conversation getting around to her baby brother's sex life, so she started calling him He-Skank or He-Whore when she was angry about it, but eventually she settled on HeHo whenever she was angry. That went on until a month or so before he took you, the Lotus, down and you joined the team, because he took up with Jill Roberts, and she made sure he didn't see anyone else after that."

Jeff wasn't comfortable with this, but the story was nearly finished so he went on. "Things settled down a little when Chuck went away to Stanford, because Ellie wasn't getting her nose rubbed in quite so much (and because he'd backed off due to the girls, he added to himself), so after that the references to HeHo only came out when she was exceptionally drunk and angry." Anna nodded, but looked at him and said "She called him the biggest slut in California." Jeff winced again "Well I don't know that that was really fair, but he did sleep with a hell of a lot of girls in those eight years."

Anna looked at Jeff again and asked a different question. "Why did they move from Arcadia to Echo Park? I would have thought they'd stay in the nicer area?" Jeff appreciated the change of topic so he went with it. "It was the cover bureau, the official story was that their parents had to go back to Hungary when Ellie was old enough to be made Chuck's guardian, so the cover bureau decided that it wasn't believable for a couple of struggling teenagers to be maintaining a nice house in an area like Arcadia, so the house was sold and they were moved into the apartment in Echo Park. To be fair, they did pick there because it was a lot easier for Ellie to get to the university when she started at UCLA, even though Chuck was still going to Arcadia High School so he'd have the best chance of getting in where he wanted."

They saw Chuck come in and park his bike in the loading dock out back, and when he came into the shop he was friendly enough, but he wasn't in the mood to talk and just put his head down and worked, neither Jeff or Anna thought that disturbing him would be a good idea.

* * *

The longer the meeting in Graham's office went on, the more Sarah dreaded this assignment, the way Larkin smirked and the looks he gave her when Graham told them that their covers would be a married couple, Tom and Eva Anderson, made it quite obvious how he was planning on playing this, and she knew that he'd be trying to get her in bed at every opportunity. That was quite aside from her fears about what it would be like, trying to work with a loose cannon like him, this assignment had to be the punishment from Hell.

When they finally left Graham's office, it took him less than thirty seconds to start trying to cajole her into dinner, or something more fun. He was doing this in front of Graham's assistant/receptionist as if she didn't exist, but the woman's expression made it quite clear that he'd been saying similar things to her before he came into Graham's office, yep, this guy was a real class act!

Sarah begged off, saying that she'd just come off a lengthy assignment and didn't know how long it would be before she was back here again, so she had a lot of things she needed to get sorted out while she had a chance. She left him there to face the music as she hurried out, but groaned to herself as she saw in the reflection in the door in front of her that as soon as he turned his smile on the assistant, she'd melted, did the woman have no self respect?

There were things that had to be done for maintenance of her life in D.C. but much of that had already been done, because as an off the books personal favour, Pete had overseen the amendment of all her official records and accounts, including the title for her apartment, to show Sarah Walker instead of the name she'd used when she was on the Secret Service gig over a year ago. He'd also inserted the records to show that her name had been legally changed to Sarah Walker at the same time, just in case anyone noticed the name change and looked into it. Anyone checking into her would see a explanation for the changes, some may question that her given name had changed as well, but there were a number of valid reasons for people changing their identities, and in case anyone official ever looked into it, Pete had also planted records for a violent stalker ex that she was hiding from, so he'd done a thorough job of not only changing her identity, but providing an solid explanation for the changes.

While she didn't have that much work to do on her identity maintenance, she did want to check up on Carina and Zondra, to see what happened to them. Zondra was fine, she was going back onto the organised crime task force and continuing on with what she'd made her life's mission since her mother was murdered, Carina was another matter though, she was being sent back to the type of missions that she'd been doing before the CAT Squad, and she was just hanging on by her fingertips.

As Carina was still in D.C. Sarah got her to come over and they spent the night talking through what she could do to handle this. By the time she left in the morning, Carina was in a lot better shape, because she had hope that she could manage this. She knew that she had their safety nets and emergency funds to fall back on, but more importantly, she knew that Sarah had her back. They'd set up extra contact mechanisms so that they could keep in touch in nearly all circumstances, and even if contact wasn't immediate, they'd get the message no matter what and be able to get back to one another. Sarah had also promised to catch up with Carina as often as possible, so she wasn't alone. Carina had been alone since she'd left home at twelve, it was only the last couple of years that she'd had people that she could rely on, in Sarah and Zondra.

Graham wanted Sarah and Bryce off in their first assignment straight away, but Sarah's mandatory medical examination blocked that, as the doctors wouldn't clear her until her leg had healed properly from the wounds she'd received in the warehouse battle (they'd only just signed off on her arm), so she got a medically enforced break there. She was in at CIA headquarters every day doing research and preparation for the assignment, but she wasn't forced back into the field straight away. Of course Larkin kept pushing incessantly for them to "get to know one another better", until she finally exploded in the middle of the offices, screaming at him that she was assigned to work with him, not to be his fuck toy, if he was that desperate for sex he could go pay for it.

Enough of the women in the offices had fallen for Larkin's lines, only to be tossed aside as soon as he got what he wanted out of them, to ensure that videos of their altercation had spread throughout the Agency within the hour. There was so much official attention being paid to what was going around that Graham had to publicly come down on Larkin and force him to back off on any non-mission pressure. He also reminded him that people would be watching, so he better not screw up as soon as they got into the field, as there wouldn't be anyone to bail him out if he did.

When Sarah was cleared by the doctors and they did go into the field, they did work fairly well together generally, though Sarah had to quickly educate Larkin about what would happen if he ever tried to send her in to sleep with someone to get a simple mission objective again. When his ego made him push and inform her that she'd do what she was told after she'd refused, he was quickly reminded, as so many other men had been, that the Ice Queen was a force to be reckoned with. Bryce Larkin wasn't a stupid man, and he knew that he'd just come closer to death than he'd ever been in his life, so he quickly revised his ideas about how they would approach missions.

It wasn't an issue much of the time, because Sarah was the one who did nearly all the planning for their operations, it was obvious to everyone, including him, that she was far more qualified to plan the operations than he was, and when they followed her plans their success was almost guaranteed. Unfortunately, like Carina, he seemed to have a pathological need to improvise in the middle of a mission, and that all too often derailed Sarah's plans, they usually manage to scrape through, but it did mar the team's success rate.

As time went on, and he behaved himself better, Sarah thawed towards Bryce a little. He was a very competent spy, not as good as he was in his own mind, to be sure, but better than the majority of agents, and he was bright enough to accept that Sarah Walker was in a whole 'nother league, so he seemed to lose the Sequoia sized chip on his shoulder and become more of a person. When his ego took a break, he was more charming and funny, and Sarah could stand being around him far more. She even gave in enough to have some of the adrenalin fueled post mission sex releases she'd had with other agents with him at times, and for what it was it was good.

* * *

As pissed off as Ellie's drunken outburst had gotten Chuck at the club, he'd managed to pretty much get over it fairly quickly. It did raise a few eyebrows at their customers' offices when he turned up in bike gear that day, but the way he travelled didn't change the way he did things, and they certainly had no complaints about that, and for that matter the girls in the offices didn't have any complaints about the "new" Chuck look either, they'd always been drawn to the cute, sweet guy who could do magic on their computer systems, and a more dangerous air about him just made hotter in their eyes. A couple of the guys who were riders put two and two together when they saw him on his bike and realised that they'd seen him out on the road, and that led to a lot of questions about what he'd done to it to make to go so hard. He always enjoyed talking about bikes and riding, so that helped improve his mood considerably.

Back at the shop, Jeff was worried when he heard about what had happened at the club, so he'd called Casey to see whether there were any special ops missions coming up soon to get Chuck's mind off it. As soon as Casey had heard what had happened, he'd gotten on the phone to Colonel Beckman and Lieutenant Colonel Mills to advise them of the situation. Even though Chuck now matched Colonel Mills' rank in the army, his Godfather was still the one who had all the connections to get them onto those missions, and those connections came through yet again, so Chuck got a call around 14:00 that led to him hastily packing up and riding home ASAP to get his gear together to be ready to be picked up by Casey by 14:30.

They drove out to the site where they'd be picked up by a Blackhawk and ferried back to Edwards for USAF Major Charles Gancanagh and USAF Major Alex Coburn to take charge of the F-15E that was waiting for them there. Their flight would be non-stop from Edwards AFB to the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, with multiple aerial refuelings along the way. The trip was expected to take somewhere between seven and eight hours (depending on conditions), and the F-15E would require an overhaul after being pushed that hard for so long, but it would get them to Kuwait in time to meet up with the special ops team before the mission.

They had a tailwind which helped them shave the flight time to just over seven hours, and when they arrived at their final destination they were welcomed by a SEAL team that they'd worked with quite often, even Casey was welcomed because he'd proven himself to them (they conceded that for a Marine he was pretty good). The SEAL team just knew them as Mowgli and Baloo, they didn't know or care that the two USAF Majors had reverted to a USN Commander and USMC Major when they changed from their flight suits into tactical gear before they meet up with the rest of the team at their base just off the air base at 12:00 local time.

Their early arrival gave them about six hours to plan and prepare for the operation, because while the team had a plan in place, one of the reasons that Mowgli was so popular was that he was a master of operations planning, and the options that he came up with would almost always go smoother, and with better result, than others' plans. The commanding officer of the SEAL team knew Mowgli (or Commander Carmichael as he was known to him) well and was happy to defer to him on this. Shaving time off the trip meant that they also had a bit more time to rest before going into action.

Just before sundown, they took off in the C-17 that was delivering them to the mission, the insertion was going to be via HALO jumps, as per usual for this group. The actual mission was anti-climatic, everything went smoothly and they retrieved the mission objective before slipping away quietly in a few trucks to an airstrip about 70KM away where satellite images taken just before they took off from Ali Al Salem had shown that there was an Antonov An-72 Coaler, which had enough capacity and range to carry the whole team out.

Chuck wasn't comfortable with the fact that they took out everyone who was at the airstrip at the time, but he had to accept that the rest of them didn't share his views on the best way to handle these things. Once the people at the airstrip had been taken out, they fueled the An-72 and took off, with Chuck as primary pilot and Casey as co-pilot because Casey wasn't qualified on the aircraft. He'd heard the mutterings about "Is there anything this guy can't fly?" back at Ali Al Salem when he'd identified it as the best option for their return, but Chuck had shrugged to himself, with his memory he just had to learn the minor differences between aircraft of a similar type and he was good to go, in his mind that wasn't anything that special.

When they landed at Ali Al Salem, they had to beg off going drinking with the guys as they had to fly back to the States straight away, so they retrieved their bags and changed back into their flight suits. When they were heading out to the overhauled F-15E that was waiting for them on the tarmac, they ran into the SEALs' commanding officer, who saluted them both with a "Major, Major" and traces of the smile he couldn't totally suppress, given that fifteen minutes before he'd been dealing with them in totally different roles, and with different names. The man didn't miss much, though, and he noted that the mini-ribbons that they displayed on their flight suits matched the ones he'd seen them wearing before, so these USAF identities were more than just mission covers, they were established identities for them. The team had always known that these two were spooks of some kind, but they weren't like any other spooks that they'd met before (thankfully, these guys were the real deal).

The flight back to Edwards was done in three legs, with aerial refueling on each leg, the first Leg was from Ali Al Salem to Ben Guerir Air Base in Morocco, the second leg was from Ben Guerir to Naval Station Norfolk, while the third leg took them from Norfolk back to Edwards. The return trip took them over twelve hours, because Chuck had manage to cajole Aunt D to letting them take a break at Ben Guerir to go and see Marrakesh, and Casey had to admit that he wouldn't mind seeing the ancient city, either.

When they finally got back and Chuck walked into the house, Ellie searched his eyes and then grabbed him in a bone crushing hug, glad that his (justified in her now sober view) anger was all gone. All he wanted to talk about was Marrakesh, as the rest was just work, though there was some talk that they may have set a record on the Los Angeles to Kuwait flight for sustained speed over that distance (the flight was over 50% further than the London to Los Angeles record that had been set with the SR-71).

* * *

Sarah's partnership with Bryce had gone far better than anyone had expected, because with her planning their operations they were one of the most successful teams out there. He'd worn Sarah down over time, though, and after being partnered together for about eighteen months, she finally gave in to his pressure to have a relationship with him. The relationship didn't last more than a few months, though, because Sarah still wasn't interested in the constant sex that he wanted and demanded so, with a few exceptions, their sex life was restricted to post mission sex to burn off the adrenalin, and that wasn't enough in his eyes.

Even though she'd tried to convince herself that it was real with Bryce, things just didn't feel right with him, the only one who had ever reached her inside was that guy, Chuck, that she'd met and made out with at his 21st party, and now couldn't forget (as much as she'd tried to). With everyone else it was just a matter of putting up with it, or getting a release from the tension. Of course the relationship with Bryce and their sex life both finished as soon as Sarah found out that he'd been screwing anyone and everyone he could, even when they were supposed to be in a relationship. He tried to deny it, of course, but one of the ones he'd screwed was Carina, and that only came out when she finally told Carina that they were together.

Bryce had gone on short mission to Colombia with the DEA while Sarah was wrapping up their previous mission, but when Carina turned his advances down because he was Sarah's partner he'd convinced her that he and Sarah didn't have anything to do with one another outside of missions. Given that Sarah had made a point of waiting to tell her about her warming to Bryce until they'd worked things out, Carina didn't know any better, so she thought "Why not?" and slept with him. After Carina told her that, it didn't take much to confirm he'd been doing the same thing all over the place, and that was it for Sarah.

Things between them deteriorated quickly once she'd finished their physical relationship, Bryce turned back into the agent that everyone else had been describing, sloppy, reckless, and not caring one bit what his actions would do to anyone else. The final straw was the mission in Belarus, it was supposed to be a simple mission, recover intel from a Warlord's dacha just North of Minsk, in and out with no complications, but that didn't take Bryce into account.

They'd had no trouble getting into the warlord's dacha under the guise of party guests, though Bryce had arced up when Sarah stopped him ramping up the PDA beyond any reasonable or acceptable level, which of course drew more attention to them than they'd like. Once enough of a show had been put on to set the scene though, they slipped away for some "private" time to locate the safe. They found the office without any more complications and Sarah handled the security system and got into the safe without too much trouble (except for Bryce pestering her to go back to the way things were, claiming that he'd learned his lesson) to successfully extract what they were there for. As soon as they had what they were sent for they headed out, and everything was going well until the guards discovered them (or more to the point saw Bryce as he was making no effort to hide) in a part of the dacha that was off limits to guests.

They might have had a chance to talk their way out of it, playing the drunken party guests, but as soon as he saw them Bryce drew his gun, which of course wiped out any chance of that, because the guards did the same and started firing at them. As soon as they came under fire Sarah and Bryce both took cover and began shooting back, but it didn't take long before Sarah realised that the firing from their side had suddenly been reduced to what she was doing. When she looked around to see what Bryce was doing, she saw him disappearing around the corner behind her (with the bag holding what they came for). She started to call out to him but another barrage of gunfire made her turn her attention back to the imminent threat in front of her.

She managed to hold out for another ten minutes or so but she knew she was just about out of ammo, so she waited for her chance and threw the one (and only) flashbang grenade she had at the guards the next time they had a lull in the firing (timing it carefully so it was just as they were due to start firing again once they'd changed magazines, to ensure that they would be looking in her direction at the time). That resulted in the affect of the flashbang being maximised and it gave her enough of a chance to break away and run while they were all blinded and stunned.

Bryce had already taken their car and left, so Sarah spent the next couple of hours running and hiding. The warlord's men were combing the streets of the town for them, so she had to go to ground whenever she saw one of their patrols and wait until they were well past her each time. That made her progress very slow (as did raiding a few clothes lines for some less conspicuous clothes), but after she found that the hotel where they'd been staying was overrun with the warlord's men, she eventually found an apparently unused cow shed on the opposite edge of town to the dacha and hid in there for the night.

She slept fitfully through the night (waking at any sound outside) until just before dawn when she slipped out to stow away on one of the farm trucks heading out of town. When she'd gotten as far as she was going to that day, stowing away on farm trucks and transport trucks (even if it was only about 100 KM), she found a hotel where she could stay for the night and called for an extraction. She had become used to being let down by the people she worked for, but even so she still couldn't believe the response she got from the people she was reporting to.

She was advised that Bryce had reported the previous night that even though she'd blown the mission, he'd managed to retrieve the mission objective and get himself out of the dacha with what they were sent to retrieve. She was also told that all available CIA resources would be needed to ensure that he and the mission objective were extracted safely. She tried to explain what had actually happened but they informed her that what she was saying did not match the information that they had been given previously by a reliable source, and with that they disconnected the call.

She sat and looked at her phone in disbelief after the call was disconnected, she had just been abandoned and thrown to the wolves and she still had at 1-200 KM and at least a couple of warlords (with their armies) between her and the nearest safe border. She had been betrayed by both the partner (and more) that she'd been with for the past two years (watching his back for the whole time), and the people she'd worked for for the past five years, successfully delivering everything they asked of her. It was looking less likely that she'd be getting out of this one.

About ten minutes after her superiors terminated the call, she received a text from an analyst on the European desk who she'd worked with when she was with the CATs, the text just contained a phone number and the instruction "Ask for Marjan". She wanted to call to ask what the message meant, but knew that they'd already taken a very big risk just to send her that much, so she couldn't put them into any more risk. With that she pulled the battery out of the CIA phone and destroyed it so that she couldn't be located with it.

She spent the next fifteen minutes or so going over what her options were, but it didn't take long to accept that, the text that she'd been sent (but didn't really understand) was the only option that she had. Once she'd done so, she dug out the burner phone she kept with her at all times for these types of emergencies and dialled the number that she'd been sent. The woman who answered asked her a number of questions to confirm who she was (as well as confirming that SHE knew a disturbing amount about who she was), then she asked whether she had told the CIA where she was? Sarah ran over the conversation quickly in her head before confirming that her current location had not come up at any point in the discussion.

The woman sounded relieved as she said that that hopefully meant that she was safe to stay where she was until help arrived. After that she got "Eva" (given that that was her identity on this mission) to tell her where she was, then she paused to check with someone else, and told her that she'd hopefully be there by 09:00 the next morning, and that the rendezvous point would be at the Draniki Cafe, which was on Polatsk street on the other side of the town square.

Sarah could have sworn that the woman was trying not to laugh when she gave her the code phrase of "I am Daniel" and told her the response was the following lines, asking if she knew them? Sarah looked at the phone for about twenty seconds and then said them. "I am Sam, Sam I am" The woman took a moment to compose herself before saying that that was correct, and that she'd send a text to the phone she was using when she was thirty minutes out so that she wasn't outside exposing herself any longer than she had to be, with that they finished the call.

Sarah sat for a few minutes looking at the phone after they'd terminated the call, there were too many things about this that didn't add up, because she was sure that that woman knew that Sam was her real name. But what it came down to was that this was probably her only chance of getting out of here alive, so if she was walking into a trap she'd just have to keep her wits about her and try and fight her way out if it came to that. With that, Sarah ensured that the room was secured as well as it could be, had a shower, rinsed out her top and underwear and hung them up to dry, then tried to get some sleep.

She was surprised when she woke up the next morning to find she'd slept the night through, and she was pleased to see that the underwear and clothes were dry (well dry enough anyway), so she had another shower and got dressed. Even though it was a pointless exercise, she checked her pistol and confirmed that she only had two rounds in it, and went through her purse to make sure she hadn't missed any in there. If this was a trap, she didn't have much chance of surviving it, but she'd take as many with her as she could.

At about 08:15, she got the text from Marjan to say that she was half an hour away, so she went downstairs to check out of the hotel and started walking, but not across the square, down the street she came into town on, so that she could carefully slip around the edge of town and watch the cafe from the other side. Just after she got to the spot she decided would be a good lookout point, a slightly beaten up Ford Escort from the '90s pulled up outside the cafe and an older woman got out of the driver's side. She looked into the cafe, then immediately turned to look where Sarah had positioned herself, the woman seemed to smile before she got back into the car and drove to where Sarah was, getting out again to face her and say "I am Daniel."

Sarah grimaced and then gave the counter phrase "I am Sam, Sam I am". At that the woman gave what appeared to be a genuine smile and said "Glad to see that you're OK Eva, now how about we get out of here before something happens?" Sarah nodded and reached for the passenger door handle but the woman told her "You may want to get in the back, we've got clothes in there that should fit you better than what you have on." Sarah looked at her with narrowed eyes, but nodded again and climbed into the back of the car.

Looking in the bags on the back seat, she could see that the clothes suited a younger woman who belonged in the same demographic as the woman who was driving, and as she'd said, they were the right sizes for her, as were the shoes that went with them. Once she'd changed, she stuffed the clothes and shoes she'd been wearing into a bag and climbed into the front seat, taking care not to interfere with the woman driving. When she was in the front seat, the woman took a quick look at her and nodded approvingly, picking up a couple of Lithuanian passports and handing them to her, it appeared that they were Marjan and Eva Bernius, mother and daughter.

When they were clear of the town, the woman, "Marjan", told her to get the bag of clothes ready and toss the items out one at a time when she told her, Sarah wanted some answers but understood that they needed to get rid of anything that might link her to Eva Anderson, so she pulled the bag into her lap, rolling up the trousers and opening the window, each time Marjan said "Now!", she'd toss the item she was holding and get the next item ready to throw. When she'd done that, Marjan looked at her again and said.

"Don't forget your gun and phone, and anything else you have that associates you with anything other than Eva Bernius. You can leave the gun until we get close to the border, but it has to go before then, and so do these." She put a gun and a spare magazine in the console between them. Sarah nodded again, assembling the items in her lap, stripping the battery and SIM out of the phone and tossing each item separately, along with her purse and the few other things that she had with her that didn't fit a Lithuanian girl travelling with her mother. She extracted the magazine from her pistol and ejected the round in the chamber, feeding it and enough extra rounds from the spare magazine into her pistol's magazine to fill it, so that if they had to use them she could do her part. She made a point of putting her pistol in the console with Marjan's when she was done.

When she'd done that, Marjan looked at her and said "I guess you've got questions?"

"Yes, first, where are we going?"

"Across the border into Lithuania, we have a C-37A waiting for us at Vilnius Airport."

"So you're CIA?"

"Not any more, we're a group of friends of your mother's who have been keeping an eye on you for her, some are still with the Agency, but some of us have left."

Sarah nodded, still largely in the dark "Where are we going in the C-37?"

"Back to D.C., once we're there we'll get you cleared, somehow."

"So I've been burned?"

"Yes, so far we think it's just the regional Station Chief trying to hitch his wagon to Graham's Golden Boy's coat tails, but we've got to look into it to see how high it goes before we bring you in."

"What if it's Graham or even higher?"

"Then we'll give you a new identity so you can start over."

"You can't hide me from them."

"We've hidden your mother and my family from them for quite a while now, we can do it for you."

She glanced at Sarah. "You know she misses you?"

Sarah stared out the windscreen as she nodded. "Yes, but I can't go back, not after what I've become. You've been where I am, you know what I'm talking about."

Marjan reached across and wiped the tear from her cheek. "Don't underestimate her ability to love you for what you are, you're her little girl." Sarah just shook her head and they didn't speak any further 'til they got to the border, except when Marjan told her that they were getting close, so Sarah picked up both pistols and quickly stripped them down, tossing a part or a magazine whenever Marjan said "Now!"

They got through the border without any trouble, because both women spoke perfect Lithuanian with the appropriate accents and they hardly got a second look, except for the younger guards checking out Sarah.

It was a little more complicated, getting through security to enter the private plane area of Vilnius Airport, but they managed that OK too.

What Sarah WASN'T expecting, though, was the person who was waiting for them on the C-37, she couldn't say a word when Roan Montgomery walked up to her and said "Samantha my dear, I'm so glad you're safe!" and gave her a hug.


	8. What Are You Doing Here?

**Apparently some people aren't happy with the idea that Sarah may have sought occasional release in the heat of the moment, or that she'd have a moment of weakness and briefly fall for the concerted efforts of the douche who was characterised as having charmed just about every woman he met (and yet they didn't seem to mind that Chuck was the HeHo when he was a teenager?). Sorry, but IMHO, in the "real world" it's likely to happen, so that's the way I wrote it, Sarah is a passionate woman living an exciting life and even if she won't commit to anyone but the right one (Chuck), we all have lapses of judgement from time to time in the heat of the moment (well, most of us do anyway).**

 **Usual disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

Sarah just stood, stiff as a board, as Roan hugged her, and Marjan snorted, saying "Give her some room Roan, I think it's a bit too much to take in at the moment."

Roan quickly let go of her and stepped back with an apology, and Marjan grasped Sarah by the elbow and led her to a seat, pushing her into it and sitting beside her. The cabin attendant shut and latched the door, looked to see that everyone was seated, and told the pilots that they were good to go.

Being a government plane, they got priority clearance and were in the air inside five minutes, Marjan held Sarah's hand for a while, until Sarah nodded and said that she was OK. She drew a breath and started talking quietly. "I'm sorry, it was just a shock to see him, who else is in this group, Graham?" Marjan scowled, saying "Oh Hell no! That bastard's evil incarnate, he's in my top five to track down and put a bullet between his eyes!"

Sarah snorted "Yeah, I can agree with that." Then her eyes widened and she turned to the older woman "Bryan Mills, he's part of your group, isn't he?" Marjan smiled and nodded. "Yes, Bry's one of us, he's been trying to keep an eye on you." Sarah smiled, too. "He saved me a couple of years ago."

On the flight back, they laid out a story that would cover up the fact that people had been actively helping her, so the story they went with was that Roan had been in Europe on Agency business and ran into Sarah after she'd escaped from Belarus after being betrayed and deserted by her partner, Bryce Larkin. The most important thing that they had to do was assemble the proof of what had happened and get the right people to see it, so that she could be cleared.

Getting the proof was actually easier than they thought it would be, because the report that Larkin gave was that she'd screwed up and gotten herself captured but even though he failed in his attempt to rescue her, he went on to break into the safe and retrieved the mission objective.

That was the first break they got, because Sarah had used the cracking device that was supplied to unlock the device with her thumbprint to confirm that it had what they needed, and that alone would prove his report to be a lie, as her thumbprint would be recorded in the device. Larkin knew nothing about that because he thought that the minor details like how things worked were beneath him.

The other proof was harder to get, and Sarah for one didn't know how they did, but they also had high resolution satellite heat image recordings which showed two distinct figures in the office in the dacha and leaving together, then one taking off as soon as they were engaged by a larger force. The heat image recording showed the first one to leave going straight to a car and driving away, while the figure that had stayed behind disabled their opponents before getting out, checking where the car was and then having to evade a large force in the town while they were escaping on foot. The recording also showed enough difference between the two figures to indicate that the one who'd taken off and left the other behind was NOT the one that had worked on the safe in the office, as that one was constantly moving around the room while the other stayed in one place.

The third piece of evidence was the recordings of Sarah's and Larkin's calls for extraction, where Larkin had levelled more accusations about Sarah than he had in the formal report, and responded with "Look, what's it matter? I'm the agent who has proof in his hand that he achieved his mission, and she's a dead woman" when asked whether anyone could corroborate his story.

Roan called in a few favours and managed to arrange for the hearing to be convened without notice to Graham, so Graham only found out about it part way through when Larkin and the Station Chief who'd burned Sarah were called in to answer questions about what had happened. They didn't know exactly where Graham stood in this, but they wanted to make sure that Sarah was exonerated before he could shut the hearing down, just in case.

By the time Larkin and the Station Chief were called in, the matter had already been determined, her thumbprint in the device and the heat image recordings corroborated what she'd said when she'd called for her extraction, and totally refuted everything from Larkin. When Graham demanded to know why he'd been kept out of the loop, the chairman of the hearing told him that it was to spare him a conflict of interest where his protégés were involved. He also told him that he'd called the hearing when Roan Montgomery, who reported to him, had advised that he was returning from his mission with a young agent who had an impeccable record, but who had been listed as going rogue by the Station Chief who'd been in charge of her last mission. Graham didn't like it but he didn't have a leg to stand on, and he wasn't going to be dragged down with them, so he just sat there and listened as the hearing proceeded.

Larkin tried to put it all down to panicking and running when the mission turned bad, then trying to cover up what had happened afterwards because he thought Sarah had been killed in the fight. He did a good job of pretending to be remorseful, but while the hearing didn't believe that for a second, there wasn't much they could do, so they could only demote him and take him off active duty until he somehow proved that he could be trusted again.

The Station Chief was a slightly different matter, in trying to attach himself to what he saw as Larkin's rising star, he'd hung Sarah out to dry in an attempt to ensure that she didn't get out of Belarus alive to blow the whistle on them, and then when it looked like she might manage to survive, he'd marked her as going rogue and burned her. Even though a number of those sitting on the hearing would like to see him shot for doing what he did, they couldn't order that, so he was merely stripped of his rank and position and sent to a remote listening post until he retired or died, whichever came first.

It was obvious that Graham intended to get back at Sarah for what had happened, and for interfering with his plans. Roan had begged her to let them give her a new life, but she felt that after everything she'd done she wasn't fit for any other life, so the CIA was the only thing she had. That was why, when Graham informed her that her next mission would be under a handler because everyone involved with the incident was being watched closely, she just accepted it and got on the flight to Budapest without argument.

* * *

After they came back from their mission things were pretty hectic, taking on "real" security work for the business when they hadn't cut back on the core business yet meant extra hours, and they still had their DCS work and Aunt D's "special projects" to do.

Some of those special projects were major pieces of work, like the recent one where she'd gotten Chuck to track down and collect every piece of footage and every image taken for a specific location in Belarus on a specific night. That had required hacking into just about every sensitive military and intelligence imaging system on the planet, and in the end there was only one piece of video that gave them anything definitive, but that seemed to satisfy what was needed, from her reaction.

The workload was cutting into his exercise time, too, the only way he was getting his normal few hours a day now was by exercising while he was working through the night, so he'd set up punching bags and exercise gear in the workroom. Chuck and Ellie had had a solid exercise regime since they were little kids, thanks to their mother, but it got ramped up considerably in their teens when Casey was preparing them for their special operations training, and it had been maintained at that level since then. Given that they always wanted Chuck to blend in, when his exercises were ramped up, the focus was always endurance and muscle density over muscle bulk, and after over ten years of at least two or three hours a day on average working hard at that (and an hour's flat out pre-dawn run/parkour session just about every morning), he had a muscle density that was far higher than most men's.

When he was covered, Chuck looked fit enough but ordinary, but when his body was exposed, his muscle definition was incredible, and his muscles were rock hard. Casey knew from painful experience that Chuck was far stronger than he looked, because Casey was his primary sparring partner. Members of one special forces team also knew how strong he was, because when their massive (180 KG) heavy weapons guy had his leg shattered by a burst of automatic weapons fire, Mowgli had picked him up in a fireman's carry and took off at a run for nearly 2 KM to get him to a safe area to be treated, getting hit a few times himself along the way. Most of the guys in that team were a lot bigger than Mowgli, but they couldn't have picked up Tommy and carried him that way, yes, he was staggering by the time he got Tommy to safety, but he did it. The videos of that spread far and wide within certain circles and it added to the Mowgli legend quite considerably, as well as adding to his medal count and getting him another field promotion.

When everything came through to add the Combat Jump device to his Military Free Fall Parachutist Badge for the HALO jump he did with the Special Forces Group in May, it was a big thing to Uncle Bry (possibly because it was his old group) and Casey, but he just couldn't see it, any more than he could with the two Combat Jump devices he had on his Senior Parachutist Badge. But it may have just been that he didn't have the military mindset, they also thought it was a big thing that he had the Combat Action Badge, Combat Action Ribbon and all the medals he'd been awarded over the past ten years, and he didn't see that either.

He was proud of being rated as a Naval Aviator, USAF Senior Pilot and USA Senior Aviator, as he'd worked hard for them, and his SEAL trident, even his Special Forces Diver, Navy and Marine Corps Parachutist, Army Senior Parachutist, Military Free Fall Parachutist, and Expert Rifle and Pistol Marksman ratings he could feel were achievements as he'd had to earn them, but the medals and other things, he'd just been there doing what he was supposed to. For that matter he didn't buy into the ranks, either, he accepted that his identities needed to be officers for what he did, but being a USN Commander, USAF Major, USA Lieutenant Colonel AND a USMC Lieutenant Colonel, they weren't all needed at that level.

* * *

As soon as she got to Budapest and reported to her handler, Kieran Ryker, Sarah knew that there was something wrong about this mission, quite aside from Ryker being a sleaze who made no bones about wanting to get her into bed, she could see that he had an agenda here, and that it didn't have anything to do with a legitimate mission. He also wasn't giving her any information about what they were doing there, just telling her that she'd get her instructions when necessary.

The fact that she checked her messages while she was waiting to go into the target location and listened to one from her mother (they must have told her something about getting her out and she was obviously worried that she hadn't heard from her, herself) didn't help her frame of mind at that point, either.

Inside the location, it was a typical Ice Queen scenario, lots of bad guys that she had to take out by herself, but having her mother's voice in her head didn't help her do what she had to do at all. Her mother's voice wasn't enough to stop her doing what she was best at, though, and after she'd taken out the eleven she found there Ryker directed her to where the package was located and it all fell apart, because the only thing in that room was a baby. Ryker told her that the package was the baby and to take it and go, and even though she knew this was wrong, she couldn't leave the baby there, unprotected, so she took it out of there.

The next day, when she was supposed to hand over the baby to Ryker, she turned up with a stroller and questioned Ryker about what was going on. He obviously thought that she was as shallow and greedy as he was as he'd tried to convince her that it was justified to keep the baby until she was old enough to access the fortune that her parents were killed for, spinning lines about having to look after your loved ones because no-one else would. Ryker gave up on that approach when she called him on his lies and went for his gun, but she was faster and shot him in the shoulder before running away.

Back in the hotel room where she'd hidden the baby, Sarah had another problem, she had absolutely no idea how to handle a baby. No matter what she did, she couldn't get her to stop crying, she'd done everything she could think of, but she just didn't know what to do. She realised that there was only one person she could call about this, yes, Marjan may have known but the number she had for her would be long gone by now, so the only person she knew who could help was her mother.

She was tearing her hair out when she finally broke down and called her mother, just hearing her voice calmed her a little but she was still frantic as she told her that she was on a mission and was looking after a baby and she wouldn't stop crying, eventually begging "Can you please help me?" Emma was confused, but she pushed that aside as she said "OK, yeah" she first went to the usual suspects, asking if she was wet, but when Sarah said that she'd changed her, and fed her an hour ago, she asked "Did you try rocking her?"

Sarah freaked out, so she told her to hold the baby close to her and rock back and forth, but the lack of an immediate solution just added to Sarah's panic. Grasping at straws, Emma said "Just try singing to her." she could hear Sarah's panic levels drop a tiny bit as she asked what she should sing to a baby, so she asked if she remembered the lullaby that she used to sing to her, but Sarah was so flustered, the best she could do was "I think so?", so Emma started singing it into the phone, smiling when she heard Sarah singing with her, when they finished, she asked "Did it work?" and Sarah said that it did, thanking her.

A bit later, she was holding the baby as she looked out at the rain and her phone rang, so she put the baby down and answered it. Graham was being, not Graham, pretending to be caring and supportive for some reason, he asked about the package, so she asked what would happen with it, asking whether he could guarantee its protection if it were brought in. Graham, started hedging as soon as she asked that, saying that he couldn't make any guarantees because Ryker could track the package through the CIA records. That made Sarah's decision for her and she told him "I'm not in possession of the package Director, it must be somewhere else."

When she got off the phone she panicked, she had to hide the baby from the CIA and everyone else who wanted to get control of fortune that she was the key to, but there was nowhere that she could be safe from them. She slumped as she realised that there was one place the baby would be protected, but if she went down that route she'd be putting both of them at risk. She spent a lot longer trying to find an alternative than she had in that hotel room in Belarus a few weeks ago, but she couldn't think of any other option, so she called the familiar number again.

Emma of course said that she'd take the baby in, so after spending a while making sure that she understood the risks and could handle it, Sarah said that they'd hopefully see her in a couple of days (she'd already mapped it out in her head, buy a car and drive over the border into Austria, pick up the train to Munich there, then fly from Munich to Tijuana via Mexico City, go to their safe house in Tijuana to pick up her car, passport etc and then just drive over the border and up to her Mom's), when they'd sorted out the rough details she wound up the phone call and put the sleeping baby down so that she could run out to quickly pick up the main items she needed then and there, a) a car that would get them over the border without attracting too much attention, b) baby papers that matched the passports she'd be using, and wigs etc to change her appearance to match those passports.

The baby was still asleep when she got back, so she packed things up ready for them to take off in the morning and got some sleep (with a few interruptions to change, feed and settle the baby). The journey started when she got up in the morning, the first two legs went fine, she had no trouble driving over the border into Austria, and they hopped on the train there to take them the rest of the way to Munich. In Munich, she had to pay through the nose for a last minute ticket to Tijuana, but that was expected, and they were on their way inside four hours.

In Tijuana, she checked her car (they were good people around the safe house there but a Porsche Cabriolet was always going to be tempting), and got one of the local mechanics to come over to mount restraints for the baby carrier behind the passenger seat, and she thanked him and fixed him up for the job before going inside to change her appearance to match the pipeline passport. She crossed the border into Southern California using her third passport of the trip, and she pulled into a truck stop about 10KM away from the border to change her look back to Sarah Walker. They got to Emma's about forty six hours after they'd talked on the phone, so it was within the two day estimate that she'd given her mother.

When she delivered the baby to Emma, Emma tried to get her to stay, but she told her she couldn't, saying "Mom, I've thought a lot about this and I can't stay, because for both of you to be safe, well I can never see you again." She couldn't look at the heart broken expression on Emma's face so she looked away before continuing "When the CIA recruited me I was on the run with Dad, and we changed our identities so much that they never knew that you existed, and we can't let them find out about you now."

Emma looked at her and knew that she was right, as long as the CIA knew about Sarah Walker she could lead the Agency to them, so she stopped arguing. She talked about all the things that Sarah had missed out on as a girl, and how much she wished that she could have given those things to her. Sarah couldn't answer that, so she started babbling about what the baby liked, until Emma cut her off with "It's OK honey" before they both broke down and whispered "I'll take good care of her." Sarah nodded and whispered "Yes, I know, I know you will." before she turned to leave. She stopped and turned back at the bottom of the steps to say "Going to prom, and soccer games, and all those normal things you wanted for me, will you just make sure she gets them?" Emma was trying to hold back her tears as she said "Of course I will" and Sarah said "Thank you" and ran off before she broke down totally.

* * *

Chuck gave in to Ellie's demands that they go out for his birthday because, well, resistance was futile, they both knew that she wouldn't shut up until he agreed. They were all there, well everyone except Casey (because he'd been called back to D.C. to do something) on the West coast anyway, and it was a good night. There was an uncomfortable moment when Uncle Bry asked Chuck if he was seeing the girls, but Chuck just said that he did earlier and Ellie changed the subject right after that. Luckily, Anna had been drinking a bit and she missed the looks going between the others at Bry's faux pas, so they dodged a bullet with that one.

By the time they packed it in, Anna was three sheets to the wind (and Ellie wasn't far behind), so they decided that Anna would be safer spending the night at Casa Bartek than she would at home by herself. They helped her change into a T-shirt to sleep in and put her in Chuck's bed, and then Chuck made sure that Ellie was settled before he went to the work room to catch up on their workload.

He was working through the emails in his inbox when he stopped, because there was one from Bryce fuckin' Larkin! Even though he knew it was a stupid thing to do, he opened the email to see what he had to say, maybe he was finally offering some explanation for what he did? The email only had a Zork file in it. They'd written their own version of that together back in better times, so thinking that this may be a peace offering, Chuck opened the file. When the words "The terrible troll raises his sword" scrolled across the screen, he thought back to what his character had to counter that with and typed in "Attack troll with nasty knife". But as soon as he hit "Enter", he was barraged with a stream of images that he couldn't look away from, and the next thing he knew it was morning and Anna and Ellie were trying to wake him up.

Ellie checked him out thoroughly, but couldn't find anything wrong with him, so against her advice he went to work with Anna, because they were already getting calls about a new virus that was hitting their customers' PCs. The new virus was being distributed by a malware site that purported to be for a Serbian Porn Star, Irene Demova, and any business with a lot of single guys on the staff was getting their machines fried.

They swung by a couple of their customer's offices on the way to work to pick up the effected machines, to see what could be done with them, and also hoping that they could get an image of the virus that Jeff may be able to reverse engineer so that they could protect machines from it. If he could do that, not only could they look after their customers, they could also rake in the money selling a fix for something like that.

Once they were in the shop and Chuck had downed a few more headache tablets (his head was still splitting from whatever that bastard Larkin sent him the night before, but it was his own damn fault for being stupid enough to open it), they started pulling machines apart. It didn't take long for all the work surfaces in the back to be covered with disembowelled computers, so Chuck took the laptop that belonged to the son of one their best customers up to the counter to pull it apart.

* * *

Sarah had to stop down the road from Emma's because she couldn't see through the tears in her eyes, and when she did so, she saw a message from Graham on her phone. The message was just to call in, so she waited until she was settled enough to not let on about her emotional state and then did so. His first question was about her location, and when she said that she was back in the States he asked where? Not trusting him or wanting to give anything away she just said "California."

She was surprised when he sounded relieved and said "Good, I need you in Los Angeles tomorrow at the latest, Bryce Larkin has gone rogue and stolen something, something big. He apparently sent it to an accomplice, someone he went to college with, and I need you to recover it at all costs." She looked out the window and wondered whether he knew she was near Los Angeles now, but she just said "Yes, sir." and Graham went on.

"I'll have what we have so far sent to you, apparently Larkin's accomplice works at an electronics store, you can get whatever you need to engage him from the L.A. Station. Again "Yes, sir." "This is a game changer Sarah, are you up to this?" "Yes, sir" "OK, we'll send through what we have now. For some reason our techs are having a lot of trouble getting the details about this guy, so it will probably be tomorrow, or perhaps even later, before you get the rest of it, but I need you to make sure that you're there tomorrow at the latest. The NSA's after him too, and you need to get him first!" "Yes, sir." With that Graham grunted something like "OK" and hung up.

The initial intel package came through and Sarah looked through it before she got back on the road, at least getting back into agent mode let her get control of her emotions. They'd narrowed the location down to somewhere in North East L.A. near Bob Hope airport so far, so she headed there, checking into the Maison23, she didn't think that Graham would argue about how much it cost at the moment, he seemed to have his back up against the wall on this.

As the information kept trickling in, she formulated her plan of attack, Larkin's accomplice apparently worked for a computer service company in Glendale (or at least that was what the website that matched the email address that Larkin sent the package to said), so she'd go in there with a broken computer for initial engagement. With that in mind, she drove down to the CIA's L.A. Station to get a convincingly non-operational laptop and the other things that she needed.

She'd gotten frustrated by how slow the information was coming in and tore strips off the analysts one time they called her with another small update, but relented and apologised when the obviously terrified analyst stammered that for some reason, this small company's systems had the strongest security that they'd ever seen. When he said that, she remembered that the CCE site had noted that the company was moving into security systems and thought this may be an advertising strategy on their part (if your own security is stronger than anyone else's, that'd give prospective customers more confidence in you), so after she'd apologised, she sweetly suggested that if they couldn't get the information from them directly, perhaps it would be more productive to look into the people connected to them to get what they needed? The analyst thanked her for that idea (they hadn't thought of that themselves? The CIA needed better analysts!) and they finished the call.

After they changed their approach, more information came in about CCE, but still not much about the target, and they had to wait until morning to get the information about who worked for them out of the appropriate government departments, so with that she went to bed. In the morning, she got up and headed down to the store about an hour after they should be open, hopefully missing any rush but not so early that it'd attract attention. She was sitting her car up the street from the shop when she got the information about the employees of CCE.

Sarah looked at the information that Graham had just sent through to her, apparently there were only three people working at this Charlemagne Computers Etc, so with any luck this should be simple and she'd have it done and be out of here by the end of the day. The employees were Jeffrey Barnes, a white male in his late thirties, Anna Wu, an Asian female in her mid twenties, and her mark, Karol Bartek, a white male who had just turned twenty six.

She picked up the doctored laptop that the local CIA techs had prepared for her and stepped out of the car, strategically rearranging her top to ensure maximum effect before heading into the little shop. It only took her a second to identify her target as he was working on something at the counter with his head down while the other two were talking out the back, so she walked up to him.

"Excuse me, can you help me?"

The man looked up with a smile, but his mouth dropped open the second that he saw her.

Her reaction was pretty much the same, she just stared at him, stunned, and all she could get out was "Chuck?"

"Jenny, what are you doing here?"

Across the country in Washington D.C. Brigadier General Diane Beckman was listening to the feed from the CCE shop front with half an ear as she normally did, but when she heard that exchange she immediately hit a few keys to bring up the video feed from the CCE shop. She stopped, stunned, when she saw that face because she knew exactly who she was, blurting out "What the Hell?" as she quickly typed in the commands to put CCE into lock down mode and initiate a video conference to the shop.

When Sarah heard the door locking behind her, she dropped the laptop and drew the pistol from behind her back in a flash, aiming it at Chuck as she stepped back to keep all three of them in view. At that moment the screens around the shop lit up with image of Diane Beckman smiling out at them. "Hello Sammie, we've been looking for you!"

Sarah's head whipped around to stare at the screen, as only her mother ever called her that. She immediately identified the person on the screen as the NSA Director, General Diane Beckman, but the pistol in her hand never wavered in its aim. Noting that, the General said. "Please put the gun down Sammie, I doubt that your mother would want to shoot her best friend's son, and my godson."

The pistol didn't move as she responded "Stop calling me that! Only my mother calls me that!"

The General smiled gently at that, asking "Who do you think told me your name?" She looked away for a second as she pulled something out of a drawer. "Has your mother ever talked about her friends Mary and Diane?" Sarah nodded and the General held up the picture of the three of them that she'd just grabbed in front of the camera, pointing to one of women, saying "That's Mary, Chuck's Mom, I'm sure you don't need to be told who this is (pointing to Emma), and that's Diane, me."

Sarah lowered her pistol to her side as she asked "What the Hell's going on here?" the General smiled again as she suggested that she may like to have a seat as it was a long story.

Chuck came around the counter and took her gently by the hand to lead her into the area behind the counter and press her into an office chair there (she had too much going on in her head at that moment to notice that she'd let him do that as if it were natural, instead of taking his head off like she would have with just about any other guy). When they were all seated, the General introduced everyone to each other, and then apologised to Sarah, saying that she knew that Graham would have been sending someone, but she didn't think it would have been her because of her history.

Chuck looked up at that, asking "What, how would Graham know about our history, and for matter how do you know about it?" Aunt D looked at him, confused. "No, I was talking about… WHAT history between you two? Oh no, THIS is the Jenny from your twenty first party?" Chuck shot a look at Sarah and saw that she was as confused as he was, but she also seemed happy for some reason.

Sarah looked at Chuck, none of this made any sense, but for some reason she was happy knowing that that night had meant something to him too and he'd remembered it, she hadn't been thinking all this time about someone who'd just forgotten about her and moved on like every other guy. Looking around quickly, she could see that the General (Aunt D?) was looking delighted and Jeffrey Barnes was looking amused, but for some reason Anna Wu was looking upset?

Something else came to her suddenly as she mentally compared the image on the picture she'd been shown to Marjan, Mary in Polish, and realised that the woman who'd saved her in Belarus was Chuck's mother, and with that another link came up, to what she'd been saying about being in the business and her association with Roan Montgomery, she was Frost! She turned to Chuck and blurted out "Your mother is Frost?" Chuck looked at her, confused again as he said "Yes, but how do you know that?" she looked back up at the screen and said "Which would make you Roan Montgomery's partner?" The General looked a little embarrassed as she said "Well, yes", but tried to deflect by bringing the conversation back to where Chuck had side tracked it.

"The history I was referring to was Sarah's history with Bryce Larkin, she was his partner at the CIA." Sarah was surprised to see the scowls that crossed the faces of all three people in the shop with her at that point, so she interjected. "Sorry, but I'm obviously missing something here, I know why I hate that bastard, but why do the rest of you hate him?" The others looked at Chuck and he glared at them, then turned to Sarah to tell her.

"Bryce was my best friend at Stanford, and I had a girlfriend that I was pretty serious about, but Jill and I had started having problems just before my twenty first. The day I got back I went to see her to straighten things out, and to tell her that I wasn't sure about continuing with the relationship (glancing at her as he said that), and I found them going at it in her room, so I decked him and left Stanford." Sarah didn't even realise that she'd reached out to him when he said that until he covered her hand on his arm with a smile.

After that, Chuck looked back at the screen, saying "So I suppose that this is related that email he sent me last night?" Aunt D frowned at him, as she said "Yes, the one you were stupid enough to open! Why was it Ellie who told me about that, and not you?" He winced, saying "Well we were getting swamped by customer calls about machines being destroyed by this new virus, I was going to call you when things settled down." She didn't stop frowning at him as she continued. "The contents of that email was a program that was developed by Orion."

Everyone in the shop panicked when Chuck seemed to be having a seizure, but the General held up her hand, saying that she'd been told that this was normal for the Intersect, but that word seemed to trigger another seizure in Chuck. When he settled down, the look he sent her way was NOT complimentary as he asked "Do you think you can hold off on saying anything else that you know will trigger this thing, please?"

He drew a breath and held his head as he turned to the others. "As I already knew before Aunt D decided to put on her little demonstration (sending another glare her way), the person she mentioned is known to me by another name, Dad." Turning back to the screen he said. "I thought he told me that the human interface part of that project was scrapped due to what happened when they pushed to do human testing?"

The General looked like she wanted to kill someone. "As far as we knew it was, what Larkin sent you must have been in what the CIA supplied when they integrated what they had with the NSA's project." Chuck looked at her. "Why don't we ask the bastard where he got it? I'm sure Casey would enjoy getting the answers out of him." She grimaced at that "Unfortunately we can't, Casey shot and killed him as he was escaping after he blew the facility up." Chuck quickly shot a look Sarah's way to see how that news effected her, but from the gleam in her eye it looked like she just wished that she could have been the one who pulled the trigger.

Neither Chuck's next question, nor the reply he got were much of a surprise to any of them. "Do we know who he was working for when he did this?" "Not for sure, but we believe that it was Graham." Chuck nodded before going on. "How will this thing effect me?" She looked concerned. "We don't know for sure, I've been talking to your father, and he pointed out that only you and him have handled this without serious harm, but you handled the early version far better than he did, so he's hopeful that it won't harm you." She paused to draw a breath. "He's looking into ways of removing or suppressing it, but at this point he doesn't have any leads on what would work for that." Chuck nodded again, not looking happy about that.

What she said next was no more of a surprise, and no more welcome. "Graham knows who the Intersect was sent to, and that was why he set Sarah, to try and get it or you in CIA custody before I, or rather the NSA, can. He knows I'm sending Casey, because we had to meet at the Intersect site, but he doesn't know that Casey will be there as soon as he will." She looked at Sarah, who nodded to confirm that the General had her orders right, before continuing. "The first priority is to get the program back, if we can do that and we can convince Graham that you never saw it, then maybe we can convince him that you're a nothing, and you should be able to disappear off their radar, though we'll have to give you new identities again." Chuck nodded, not looking forward to this but accepting that it was necessary.

Chuck rolled his chair over to the nearest workstation and went to call up his computer from home, before entering an urgent flurry of keystrokes and swearing. Rolling back to where he could see the screen and was in range of the camera again he said "Well thank god for virtual systems." The General (and Sarah) looked at him in confusion and the General asked what he meant. He waved at the disembowelled computers around the shop and said that if he'd been using a physical computer, it'd be fried like the ones there. As it was the virtual system he was used was totally wiped out, and opening the file had kicked off a sub program which went back up the line and deleted the email off any system that it had been stored on along the way.

Then he sighed, and the General nodded. "Yes, unfortunately that means that Graham will want you. Any suggestions how to handle this?" Chuck thought for a moment before speaking. "He's going to want to lock me away and use me as a captive tool, the only way we're going to get around that is to show that I can be more useful out in the real world, and also to make a case that I'll fold if I get locked away." The others were nodding, and it suddenly occurred to Sarah that she was sitting with a group of supposed civilians (except for the General), but they certainly weren't acting like civilians. She looked around the group and said "I think it's time for you people to tell me who you are." Chuck reached over to squeeze her hand with a smile and said "Yeah, you're right, you deserve to know." Looking at the screen he said "Aunt D, why don't you fill Sarah in while I try and find something that will help us here?" and with that, he rolled back over to the workstation.

As Chuck started entering commands into the computer, the General started talking. "As you now know, both of Chuck's parents used to be CIA, his mother was their best agent and his father was a scientist who created the technology that they used. When Chuck was about nine, things started to go bad in a project that Graham was pushing for, the Intersect project, one of the scientists on Stephen's team was imprinted with a personality that was corrupted somehow, and he became one of the world's worst psychopaths, he was, is, in charge of a criminal enterprise, Volkoff Industries."

"Mary, Chuck's mother, was sent in to try to retrieve him so that they could fix him. But she had been sold out by Graham and set up to be killed. She managed to convince Volkoff that she'd turned and was loyal to him, and we started working on trying to disappear the entire family, but that was difficult because Graham was having Stephen watched 24/7. Stephen was still working on the Intersect, but it wasn't going well, because most people couldn't handle it. He kept telling Graham that it wasn't safe to use on people yet, but about two and a half years after he sent Mary into Volkoff's world to be killed, Graham ordered others on Stephen's team to start the trials with the human subjects that had been selected as the best candidates, and they did it."

"Every one of those test subjects either died or had their brains burned out by the full version of the Intersect, then Stephen went a little crazy from the shock of what had been done with his work and disappeared. We picked him up and put him in a treatment facility so that he'd get the care he needed, and their Godfather and I, oh, you know their Godfather, Bry Mills, moved Ellie and Chuck to a nice place in Arcadia where they were well away from anywhere they may be recognised and had access to the best schools in the state."

"We also changed their identities to Elana and Karol Bartek, and we played their parents when we enrolled them in school and everything like that, using the names that have been assigned to their parents now, Stefan and Marjan Bartek, to make the paperwork easier. With Ellie, Chuck and Stephen safe from the retributions that Volkoff was threatening, there was nothing to hold Mary there so she got out of Volkoff's world and came back to the States, but as she was supposed to be dead, she couldn't be seen with the kids as that would put them in danger (from the CIA as well as Volkoff), so she was in hiding near the facility where Stephen was getting treatment."

She looked guilty as she continued. "Bry and I tried to look after them, but we were both in an out of the country as agents, so Ellie had to become a mother to Chuck when she was fifteen. She did a wonderful job with him, but it was hard on both of them, and Chuck played up quite a bit for a while." Sarah saw Chuck hunch his shoulders at that, and knew that there was a story that she wasn't being told yet, but she let it go as the General continued.

"I must admit, I tried them out on some analyst problems that our existing analysts couldn't handle, because they're both brilliant, and they came up with solutions that no-one else could. We talked it over with them and their parents, and we formed a team in Defense Clandestine Services under my command where they were engaged. We put a couple of layers between their new identities and the rest of the organisation, so as far as most of the military, and everyone else, knew they were Susan Jones and John Smith."

"Unfortunately they were too good, and we were swamped with work, because they were more reliable and capable than anyone else. As well as the other work, Chuck showed his genius with computers early on and he started handling all of the serious cyber security stuff under his hacker name, the Piranha." Sarah looked at him, open mouthed, at that point, because she'd wanted to thank the one who saved Zondra in the Gentle Hand witch hunt, and now she could. She pulled out her phone to take his picture and send it to Zondra with the note "This is the one who dug up the evidence to save you when Amy tried to frame you!" while listening to the story.

"We knew people would start looking into them, so both the Jones and Smith identities, and the identities "behind" them had full identities worked up, including commissions in the various services. The identities stood up to all the investigations, so everyone was sure that they knew who John Smith and Susan Jones really were. With the attention that they had to attract and the fact that we couldn't be there to protect them, we were worried about their safety. Bry and I had differing approaches to address that, I got them a guard dog, John Casey, that I could pull off just about any assignment and put him on protective duty any time we thought they needed it, but Bry thought that they needed to be able to look after themselves, and he set it up so that they could go through special ops training when they were in their teens."

At that, Sarah remembered the stories about Mowgli and his sister that the SAD guys had told her and she was looking at Chuck, thinking 'It can't be!' when her phone chimed to indicate a text message, she pulled the phone up in a daze to see a reply from Zondra "That's Mowgli!" Everything faded out for her then and the General stopped talking as she saw how she was reacting.


	9. Intersections

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

Sarah stared at Chuck as he brought up page after page on the computer, trying to trigger the intersect. "Chuck?" He turned his head to look at her "Yes Sarah?" "Are you Mowgli?" His eyes widened. "What?" "How did you?" Then he gave in and said. "Yes, Yes I am."

At that moment Casey unlocked the front door and stepped into the shop, and Sarah turned to look at him "Then I guess that makes you Baloo, doesn't it, Casey?" His eyes went wide and he darted a look at the General on the screen, who nodded, so he looked back at Sarah, saying "I don't know why we're telling Graham's Enforcer this, but yes, I am." Sarah's expression hardened and the others saw the face that had frightened, and finished, so many people in the last five years "Never call me that again!" Casey took a half step back but he wasn't about to back down from anyone "Can't handle the truth Walker?", but the General stepped in at that point to bark "That's enough Major Casey!", and he'd served under her long enough to dart a look her way and mumble "Yes ma'am."

As this was going on, Chuck's head jerked and he said "OK, we've got an event that we can use to put on a show." The others came over to see what he was looking at, but all they could see was a picture of General Stanfield, and a mention of a Pacific Security League conference at an L.A. hotel. As no-one else was saying anything, Anna piped up "What are you seeing that we aren't, Chuckles?"

Chuck stood up, saying "It's not so much what's there, it's what's in here", pointing to his head as he headed out to the break room to locate and take some more headache tablets. He continued when he returned. "Someone's planning on blowing up General Stanfield and everyone else at the Pacific Security League conference tonight." a chorus of "WHAT?"s rang out in the room (and from the screen), so he went on.

"When I brought up this page, a pile of images flashed into my head, the plans for the hotel, the designs for a bomb, a coded ad on the Russian Business Network for someone to bomb a conference in L.A. around this date and a host of other things, including a schedule for the conference with the time that General Stanfield will be on-stage highlighted. It all adds up to a plan to set off a bomb at the conference while the General's on-stage."

Casey asked "Do you know who the bomber is?" but Chuck shook his head "No, that seemed to be the only thing that wasn't in it." They heard the General talking agitatedly and stepped back to look at the screen, to see that she was talking to someone on the phone. When she slammed the phone down and swore, they guessed that the discussion hadn't gone well, she looked up to see them in front of the screen and said "They won't cancel the conference, or even General Stanfield's appearance without solid proof that there's a bomb, because they've scanned the facility and it was clean."

Chuck started to open his mouth but she shook her head "No Chuck, we can't say that John Smith dug up the intel without having irrefutable intel that we can show them." He grimaced and nodded, this was a difficult side to the thing that he now had in his head, not being able to show proof.

Sarah looked around and then asked "What if we stop the bomb, will that be proof enough?" The General nodded musingly and Casey looked at her with grudging respect, as she'd come up with the way forward that they needed. They (well they being Chuck and Sarah) nutted out the plan that Chuck and Sarah would be on a date at a restaurant in the hotel and Chuck would get a flash of information about the bomber when he saw him, they would follow him and stop him, and somewhere along the way, Casey would crash the party so he was part of it.

Chuck went back to factor in the other details that they'd need for this scenario, he dug out a laptop hard drive that they'd confirmed was totally fried and unreadable, along with other parts, and handed them to Sarah, saying "These are the drive and other bits from the laptop I used when I opened Bryce's email, you dug them out of the bin at my house while I was getting ready after I told you that I'd thrown them out because they were fried last night." She picked up the story at that point "Because, I needed a chance to search your house for the computer, so I told you that I didn't have a place to stay yet, to manoeuvre you into offering to let me get ready at your place before we went on a date."

The General was watching the two with a pleased smile on her face, they worked well together, and given what she was reading from the two of them, she was hoping that her two best friends' children could find happiness with each other, they certainly deserved it after all the shit they'd both been through.

When they'd laid out a workable plan for both handling the bomb situation and the scenario they needed to convince Graham that Chuck needed to stay in the "real" world with handlers (Casey from the NSA and Sarah from the CIA), Sarah turned to the screen and said. "I'm sorry General, I interrupted the story that you were telling me?"

* * *

Aunt D had to think back to where they were when the story was sidetracked, Sarah prompted her "But Bry thought that they needed to be able to look after themselves, and he set it up so that they could go through special ops training when they were in their teens." Aunt D's eyes widened as she realised that those were the last words that she'd spoken on this, verbatim, but Sarah had been zoning out at that point? She knew about Chuck and Ellie's exceptional memory, now it looked like Sarah may have the same capability? She tried to recover her composure as she continued.

"So, Bry organised for them to get into the Services' special ops trainings, and we had Casey get them prepared for the training, luckily they had a good start because Mary had instilled a fitness regime in them since they were little kids. To get them into the trainings, we created additional identities for them, so that they both had established identities in each service, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, and all their identities were commissioned."

"During the time that Casey was getting them ready, Chuck was fifteen and he had to take down the infamous hacktivist, Roscoe, but after he'd tracked him down and Casey captured him, Chuck wouldn't let us throw him a black site where he belonged, he made a case to use the superior skills and ability that Roscoe had for our benefit, and that was how Mr Barnes joined the team." Sarah looked at Jeff and he grinned at her.

"The next part Major Casey regarded as a punishment to him, as he was forced to add Mr Barnes to the preparation training so that he could get through the Special Ops training with Chuck. Mr Barnes managed to scrape through the Army's Special Ops trainings, and as you know about Mowgli I expect that you know about all the records he set through his trainings?" Sarah looked at Chuck, saying "No, I was told that he was incredible, but they didn't mention records?" The General smiled, saying.

"Well get him to show you his wall when you're at the house. Anyway, Ellie also went well when she did her Army and Marines Special Ops training, she may not have set records like Chuck but she shocked a lot of people by how well she did, and how many of the men she beat. Bry was pushing Chuck to try and make him recognise how exceptional he was and believe in himself, so he also put him through the Marines' Special Ops training and SEAL training when he was sixteen. It was when he blitzed the best of the best there, too, that he started to see himself a little more like we did."

"Major Casey also had a suggestion that worked well, Chuck was interested in flying, so both he and Ellie got flying lessons and started picking up flight qualifications in all four services. That went quite a long way because they were enjoying what they were doing, and they have the ability to qualify for new aircraft far faster than most people."

"When Chuck was twenty, he had to take down another infamous hacker, the Lotus, and it was the same scenario as Roscoe, he took her down but wouldn't let us lock her up, and that was how Ms Wu joined the team. Ms Wu went through the Army's Special Ops trainings, too, and she surprised her instructors by getting through as well as she did."

"Since then, the team's continued to deliver the best analysis and planning for the military and intelligence communities, and Chuck and Ms Wu have also been operating in a Field Analyst capacity that has gone into a Field Agent capacity on more than a few occasions when they were on missions with Major Casey, and on their own."

She looked at Sarah. "I noticed that you recognised the name Piranha, because he found the evidence that exonerated your friend Agent Rizzo?" Sarah nodded. "Well, you may be interested to know that he was also the one who found the footage from Belarus which proved your case and exonerated you when you had problems recently?" Sarah and Chuck whipped their heads around to look at each other, saying "That was you?" almost together. With a smile the General continued. "That's pretty much the story of who the team is, you're aware of who I am, I can see that you know who Major Casey is, and I know that you know Bryan Mills, has this answered your questions Agent Walker?" "Yes ma'am."

"Are you ready to work with us Sarah, to do what's best for Chuck and our country?" Sarah glanced at Chuck and smiled. "Yes ma'am." The General nodded. "I'll leave you to handle the details of how you're going to do this, Chuck, what do you think you need for this?" "It would be useful to have a strike team and bomb disposal team on hand for when all this comes down." She nodded again. "I'll organise them to be on hand." Then with another nod, she disconnected the call.

* * *

After she canned the link, they talked about what they had to do for that night, and then Sarah got a call from Graham, she showed the others who it was before she answered, so everyone else stayed silent. "Yes Director" "I have engaged the target at his work, my initial impression is that he's just an underachiever who's found his level at that repair shop, I don't see any possibility that he was an accomplice to Agent Larkin, he doesn't seem capable of that." The look she held on Chuck throughout was an unnecessary confirmation that she was just telling Graham what he needed to hear.

"I have manoeuvred him into asking me out to dinner at a restaurant downtown tonight, I arranged to go to his place to get ready as I don't have a hotel room yet, that will give me a chance to look for his computer and any external drives he may have, that way I can determine where everything is for when I break in later to retrieve them."

"No sir, I haven't see Casey yet, I presume that he was delayed finishing up whatever he was doing before, I am planning on staying here while the target "fixes" my laptop, and then we'll head back to his place." "No, I don't believe that that will be necessary, I know that you are aware of my views on that Director!" "He is coming back now, I have to go, goodbye." With that she hung up and fumed. Casey looked at her "He told you to screw the mark to make him easier to work with, huh?"

The glare she sent his way would have sent most men running, but he wasn't about to back down, he did have the grace to look a little sympathetic about her having to take orders like that, though. Chuck went to her and gently put his hand on her arm, she quickly looked at him, and then rested her head on his shoulder, whispering "I hate that bastard!", and she didn't reject him or complain when he put his arm around her shoulders.

Chuck, Jeff and Anna had to work on restoring their customers' computers that had been stuffed by the Irene Demova virus, so they were tied up with working on the machines and customer site trips for the rest of the day. Sarah and Casey managed to put aside their differences and researched everything they could about the hotel and the conference that they were trying to save. By six, they'd had enough and Chuck and Sarah headed to his place to get ready for their "date", Jeff and Anna did offer to stay and work on the customer machines, but the customers were closed for the day so Chuck told them to go home.

* * *

Chuck gave Sarah the ten cent tour when they got to Casa Bartek, starting at the top and working down. The attic was just storage and didn't need an immediate tour, on the first floor, he showed her where Ellie's room was and told her to drop her bag in his room as she could use that, grabbing some clothes to drop in the workroom when he showed her that as he'd shower and get ready in there, the ground floor tour was quick because it was fairly normal and then they headed to the basement, he showed her the gym and games room that were taking up over half the space, plus the guest rooms, but she wondered what he was up to when he led her into the closet in one of the guest rooms, at least until he opened the hidden door in the back of the closet.

Sarah found it hard to believe that a facility like the Bunker was under a suburban house (or to be more precise, under the garage and back yard of the house). It had everything needed to support a reasonable force of agents and serve as an operations centre. When she came back from checking out the cells, interrogation room etc out the back, something caught her eye, because one wall was largely covered with certificates and pictures, this must be the wall the General mentioned.

Heading over there, she saw that each of the people associated with the team had a section. The smallest was Jeffrey Barnes', he had certificates to show that he'd graduated from the Army's Special Forces and Rangers training, as well as his degrees, held the rank of USA Captain and USN Lieutenant Commander, was a DIA Agent and had a few medals, the highest being the Bronze Star medal.

Next was Anna Wu's, she had certificates to show that she graduated from the Army's Special Forces and Rangers training and her degrees, held the the rank of USA First Lieutenant and USN Lieutenant, was a DIA Agent and had a few medals, the highest being the Soldier's medal, Navy and Marine Corps Medal and the Bronze Star medal.

Then came Bryan Mills, he had certificates for a number of trainings and mission pictures, held the rank of USA Lieutenant Colonel, was a CIA Agent (and member of SAD/SOG), as well as a DIA Special Agent, Army Master Aviator, and had a pile of medals, up to the Distinguished Service Cross.

Casey had a pile of certificates and mission pictures, held the rank of USMC Major and USAF Major, was an NSA Agent, FBI Special Agent and DIA Special Agent, Naval Aviator, USAF Senior Pilot, and rather more medals than Bry, from the Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross and Air Force Cross on down.

It was at Ellie's where it started getting really interesting though, as well as the certificates to show that she graduated from the Army's and Marines' Special Ops trainings etc and her impressive list of degrees, she had one that stated that she'd flown an SR-71 at a recorded airspeed of Mach 3.31, and had a number of pictures taken in training, on missions, or at award ceremonies. She held the ranks of USN Lieutenant Commander, USAF Lieutenant Colonel, USA Major and USMC Major, she was a DIA Special Agent AND a DIA Agent, Naval Aviator, USAF Senior Pilot and USA Senior Aviator, and a number of medals from the Defense Distinguished Service medal on down, most of her medals were non-combat, but she did have a Silver Star medal and Bronze Star medal.

Chuck's section seemed almost as big as the rest combined, he had the certificates to show he'd graduated from the Army's and Marines' Special Ops trainings and SEAL training, as well as the records he won/held in all those trainings and his degrees (like Ellie's, his list of degrees was impressive). Then there was the one that stated that he'd flown an SR-71 at a recorded airspeed of Mach 3.35, another which stated that he'd flown a MiG-25 at a recorded airspeed of Mach 3.22, and a third for a distance record made on a flight of 9825 miles at an average speed of 1128.51 MPH or Mach 1.71 in an F-15E, as well as a number of framed news articles which obviously related to operations he'd done (including the one that Zondra had told her about) and had a number of pictures taken in training, missions, or at award ceremonies. He held the ranks of USN Commander, USAF Major, USA Lieutenant Colonel and USMC Lieutenant Colonel, he was a DIA Special Agent in Charge AND a DIA Agent, an NSA Special Agent, FBI Special Agent, Naval Aviator, USAF Senior Pilot and USA Senior Aviator, SEAL, and held more medals than anyone else, starting with Distinguished Service Cross (twice), Navy Cross, Air Force Cross, and on down from there with many others.

Looking at what was on his wall, Sarah could see that Chuck was getting uncomfortable and wanted to leave, so she decided to let him off the hook for now, but she wanted to talk to him about this, she remembered being jealous about that flight he did in the MiG-25, and now she knew he'd topped that with the SR-71? Anyway, she let him lead her out of the Bunker and upstairs.

Sarah went to Chuck's room to have a shower and get dressed for their "date", but she noticed as she was getting undressed that the bedroom was obviously unused most of the time, and without thinking went down to the workroom to ask him about that. She walked in the open door of the workroom starting to ask "Chuck, why don't.." but she forgot what she was thinking when she saw him standing at the desk checking something on the computer, wearing only his boxers.

For the second time that day, she was just standing there, staring at him with her mouth open, because the sight in front of her took her breath away. When he was dressed, she found Chuck cute and attractive but not exceptionally distracting, looking at the definition of the rock hard body and limbs on display in front of her now though, that was something totally different. She remembered at that point that she'd been surprised by how firm and solid his body had felt the night of his twenty first when she pretended to be drunk and latched onto him, but she'd forgotten at the time because what was supposed to be a quick kiss followed by a fake embarrassed exit had become an intense, passionate experience followed by a hurried and genuinely embarrassed departure.

Sarah had forgotten at that point to hold her shirt together, so Chuck was getting as entrancing a view as she was when the shirt hung open to show her delightful form in nothing but lacy lingerie. Neither registered that she'd crossed the room until she was lightly tracing his pecs and arms with her finger tips and asking how he'd gotten like this. Chuck shrugged, saying "At least three or four hours' hard work a day for the last ten or eleven years, and about an hour a day for the previous ten years?" At that point he suddenly realised that they were both standing there almost naked and blushed, stammering "Um, maybe we should have this talk when we're finished getting ready, and dressed?" Sarah looked down and realised what he was talking about and blushed almost as much as he had, apologising as she ran out of the room.

When they'd both had their showers and were dressed, she came back and knocked on the door, waiting for him to ask her to enter before she came into the doorway this time. She was blushing as she walked in and started to apologise again, but he stopped her, telling her that she'd actually given him a wonderful gift, as that was the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen. She looked at him for a while, and realising that he was being totally sincere in what he said, she smiled shyly, saying "Thank you, it was a beautiful sight for me, too", which made him blush again.

He waved her over to him, because what he was looking up was the plans for the hotel they were going to. After they'd looked through the plans and talked about that for a while, he suddenly turned to look at her, to find that her face was mere inches from his. They'd been so comfortable talking as they looked at the images in the screen that neither of them registered the fact that Sarah was perched on the arm of his chair, balancing herself with her arm across his shoulders.

He stopped again, all thoughts driven from his head as he was lost in her eyes, and she wasn't much better until she closed the last few inches to kiss him. It wasn't like their last kiss, it was soft, sweet, and tender, but it took their breath away all over again. When they drew apart she spoke softly, almost in a whisper "Sorry, but I just had to see whether I've been fooling myself for the last five years about that kiss." he looked at her, "And?" She looked hesitant, "Well for me it definitely meant something?" His smile lit up the room as he said "Thank god, I was afraid that it was only me!"

He put his arm around her and they had another light kiss before he remembered "What was it you came to ask earlier anyway?" "Oh, why don't you use your bedroom, it looks more like a guest room than someone's bedroom" He waved at the computer in front of them. "I'm working in here nearly every night, if I need to sleep I'll just nap on the sofa (poking his thumb over his shoulder)." She obviously didn't think much of that idea, but when he raised his eyebrow, she just said "We can talk about that later." With that he shut down the computer and they headed out.

* * *

The restaurant they were at had a view of both the main entrance for the hall where the Pacific Security League Conference was being held, and the service corridor for it. Casey was in a bar only a few minutes away. They were actually having a nice time as they talked, keeping an eye on both entrances, but no-one showed that set off any information flashes, so as the time for General Stanfield to get up on stage approached, they called Casey to come up. Casey had his NSA credentials and Sarah had her CIA credentials ready as they entered the hall, Chuck had his FBI credentials in his pocket, but they didn't want to use them unless necessary, to avoid tipping off Graham and his cronies.

They got in fine using Casey and Sarah's credentials, and they were all scanning the hall, Chuck looking for the Intersect to identify something and Casey and Sarah looking for anything out of place. It was the Intersect that got the hit, as he identified a server wheeling a covered food trolley towards the tables up front as a Serbian bomb maker. Unfortunately, when Chuck identified him and Casey ordered him apprehended him, he pulled out a pistol and the guards all opened fire, which left them with a very large bomb using an arming mechanism that was all but tamper proof in the time available (which was counting down from twenty seven seconds), and the only person who knew how to disarm it creating an ever increasing red stain on the floor..

There was no time to get the bomb disposal team in or evacuate the dignitaries in the room and it looked like they were up shit creek, but Chuck suddenly realised that the laptop used for the arming mechanism was the same cheap type as the ones they'd been using for testing with the virus that morning, so he quickly brought up a web browser and went to the Irene Demova malware site, thereby frying the laptop and disabling the arming mechanism with about four seconds to go.

The bomb disposal team arrived a couple of minutes later, and the loud "Fuck!"s that a couple of the bomb techs blurted out when they saw how the C4 explosives filled the bottom of the trolley (as well as much of the portion on top under the cover) led to a number of the dignitaries loudly demanding that they be fired, or at the very least severely reprimanded. General Stanfield bought into it and stormed down to demand the names of the offenders, until the bomb disposal team leader quietly pulled aside the cover on the bottom on the trolley to show him the C4 and HE blurted out "Fuck!" even louder than the bomb techs had, of course his only concern then was "What are you waiting for, get that out of here!"

Once outside, they talked over the script of how this was to go before Casey and Sarah called their respective directors and acted out their scripted arguments about what was going to happen to the asset. Eventually Graham pushed for the solution that matched what they'd scripted to ensure the CIA's involvement. The CIA and NSA would run this as a shared CIA/NSA operation, assigning the two current agents as handlers for the asset, and for now, at least, they'd leave him out in the world to see how much use he could be.

* * *

Afterwards, Casey stayed to manage the situation and ensure that any references to Chuck were suppressed, and Sarah was going to take Chuck home, but he asked her to take him to the beach for a while. As they lay on the sand, they were trying to avoid serious topics as they talked, because the whole point of going to the beach was so that Chuck could try and stop thinking about the shit in front of him.

They stayed at the beach for an hour and then headed back to Chuck's, Ellie was up, and she descended on Sarah to drag her into a bone crushing hug. It took a bit to make her shut up long enough to explain to her that it was Sarah, not Jenny, now, Sarah Walker. They opened a bottle of wine and settled down in the living room to catch up, Ellie needed to know what was going on with the CIA's involvement, and Sarah had to learn about the "Bartek"s sooner or later.

They were laughing about some of the stories that Ellie was telling, and on the way back from the bathroom, Sarah wandered over to look at the pictures on display, she recognised everyone in the pictures except for three girls, who looked like they were early teens in the latest pictures. She was asking if the girls were their cousins as she turned around, but cut off suddenly when she saw the expressions on both Chuck and Ellie's faces. Chuck looked like he was shutting everything out as he said "No, they're my daughters" he looked away for a moment before continuing. "You recall what Aunt D was saying about my playing up quite a bit? That was what she was referring to." He turned to Ellie to say "How did you put El? The biggest slut in California?" He looked back at Sarah as he stood up, saying "It's probably better that this comes out now, so you can get out before you get stuck here" and with that, he walked out of the room.

Sarah stared after him for a while before turning to Ellie and asking "What just happened?" Ellie patted the seat next to her and reached over to refill their glasses, waiting until Sarah was settled and had her glass in her hand before she started talking. "It was partly my fault that this started, I thought that I had to do everything a normal teenager does to keep up our cover, so I invited a group of my girlfriends over for a sleepover one weekend when Chuck was about twelve and a half. Now you have to remember that he was already about my height and really cute, that's what he looked like (pointing to a picture of the two of them), and the other girls thought he was a hottie around our age, so he was fair game."

"I can't remember why, but I was doing something for a while and they started a game of truth or dare, and one of the girls got dared to go and make out with Chuck, I don't know how, but it ended up being a lot more than making out, and she came back in a happy daze, so when they got the story out of her, the other girls decided that they wanted a piece of that and they all had a turn. Chuck was probably in heaven, what boy gets his pubescent fantasies to come to life like that?"

"Anyway, they wouldn't stop talking about it and more and more girls came after him to see what everyone was raving about, so he had a sex life that would put a porn star to shame before he was even a teenager and all the girls kept talking about it. I got pretty bitchy to him because I got sick of hearing about my baby brother's sex life all the time, and I said some terrible things to him, that was probably at least part of what pushed him away so he'd disappear most weekends. Even if he wasn't partying, he stayed friends with any of the girls he'd been with, so he always had plenty of places he could go."

"That went on until he was nearly finished high school and three sisters who'd moved away back at the start of all this moved back to town. It turned out that the reason they'd moved away was that they'd all gotten pregnant the weekend he was with them and their mother had moved them away to a farm so that they wouldn't have everyone pointing fingers at them for being pregnant at such a young age. Things were happy out there at first, the girls were keeping up with their education via distance learning and their daughters were happy playing on the farm, but when they started having play dates with other kids they started asking where their daddies were."

"When the kids got more upset about this, they decided to move back to town so that Chuck could see his daughters and they could get to know him. They knew that Chuck would never reject his kids and would be a wonderful father, because he's Chuck. So they moved back and let him know that he had three daughters who were half sisters as well as cousins and he started going over there a lot to see them."

"He was still going out partying up until he took up with Jill, but nowhere near as much, and when he was up at Stanford, he was coming back nearly every weekend to see the girls. Since Jill and that bastard Larkin betrayed him like that, he hasn't been with anyone, he just goes to see the girls whenever he can and catches up with friends."

"He never told Jill about the girls because she didn't care about anything but herself, for that matter you're the first person outside the family who were there back then that he has told about them. He didn't even tell Anna and she's been very much part of the family since about five or six months before he met you. I hope you understand how important that shows you are to him?"

Sarah nodded tentatively, but asked "Why did he tell me to leave then?" Ellie smiled at her "What makes you think he said that?" "He said.." she stopped, running what he said through her head. "It's probably better that this comes out now, so you can get out before you get stuck here" She looked at Ellie "He was giving me a way out if I can't handle the idea?" Ellie nodded with a smile, asking "So, do you think you can handle it?"

Sarah looked at her "Can I handle the idea that he wants to be a father to his daughters who were born when he was thirteen? Yes, I think he's wonderful for doing that. Can I handle the idea that he's still seeing umpteen exes? I'm not so sure about that."

"No, you apparently misunderstood me, he's still FRIENDS with nearly all the girls he's been with, and yes, that's an embarrassingly large number, but as far as I know, the last woman who got anything more than a friendly hug and kiss from him was, actually, you. He spent the night holding Anna the night I got drunk and came out with the biggest slut in California diatribe right in front of her in a club, because then Anna was upset that he'd rejected her when he'd been with all those women, but that was nothing more than holding a friend because she was upset."

Sarah muttered to herself "That'd be right, I have to fall for a fuckin' saint!", or at least she thought she'd muttered it to herself until Ellie snorted and said "Oh, he's no saint." Sarah tried to stop herself talking, but she seemed to have no control of her mouth. "Ellie, you don't know what I've done, I've killed hundreds, I've tortured people without mercy, I've slept with disgusting perverts for the job, OK, I only did that to survive, but I did it, I even had a relationship with Bryce fuckin' Larkin! I don't deserve Chuck, and I certainly don't deserve to be around his girls, or anyone good."

Ellie reached over and took her hand. "You two are a good pair, you've been downstairs, you've seen the wall, haven't you?" Sarah nodded. "I'm sure you know as well as I do that he's earned everything that's there." Sarah nodded again. "Well as far as he's concerned he doesn't deserve any of it, he believes that they've just given him those things to try pump up his ego, or he's being rewarded for doing things he believes are wrong, like killing people." She looked her in the eye "So who's better suited to each other than a pair of over achievers who don't believe that they deserve what they get when they've sacrificed so much? Do you care about him?" Sarah nodded and said "Yes, yes I do" "Then will you PLEASE get your head out of your arse and then go up there and make him do the same?"

Sarah went up to the workroom, but couldn't get Chuck to open the door, so she picked up her bag and came downstairs to tell Ellie he wouldn't to talk to her, so she was going. Ellie ripped the bag out of her hand and grabbed her arm to drag her back upstairs, unlocking the workroom door and pushing her inside saying to both of them. "If either one of you come downstairs alone I'll tranq you both and lock you in a holding cell in the Bunker together until you sort yourselves out!"


	10. To Be, Or Not To Be

**Usual disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

The expression on Sarah's face as she looked at the door Ellie had just slammed shut behind her was, well not afraid, but definitely worried. "She wouldn't so that, would she?" Chuck snorted. "Cyclone Ellie? Tranq us and imprison us to try and make us work things out the way she wants? Well I'm not certain that she could, but she'd certainly try!" He sighed. "She still tries to fix me, make everything alright, even though I'm not a kid any more and it was NEVER her responsibility to do that, people just expected her to and she did everything she could to make things right for me."

Sarah plopped herself down on the couch, unconsciously mirroring Chuck's cross legged posture. "She loves you, she wants you to be happy, that's not a bad thing." He looked at her. "No, but I wish she'd concentrate on making herself happy, instead of trying to fix something that's broken. She was right, I WAS the biggest slut in California, I slept with just about any girl that asked until I found out about the girls, and even then I didn't completely stop it." She cocked her head as she looked at him. "Well you got pushed into it quite young, you can't really be blamed for getting tied up in the whole thing."

Thinking for a moment, she added. "They're lovely girls, what are their names?" He smiled ruefully, "Charlotte, Carla and Carolina, for some reason they wanted to name the poor kids after me." "Stop it, they're lovely names, so do they take after you, wonderful and infuriating?" He just looked at her for a while "Well I think they're wonderful, but that has nothing to do with me, but infuriating, yes, they can be, and their mothers tell me that they remind them of me that way." She snorted "Why isn't that a surprise?"

She looked at him seriously. "Chuck, any doubts that I may have, they've got nothing to do with the girls, or you, it's me, I've done terrible things and I've been stained by them." He snorted at that "It's not you, it's me? That's not very original Sarah." She looked confused as she said "I don't know what that means?" "Really? It's the oldest line in the book to break up with someone, though we're not in a relationship so technically there's nothing to break up from." She looked away from him.

"I wouldn't know about that, the closest thing to a relationship that I've ever had was Bryce, even though that never felt right and I finished it as soon as I found out that he'd never stopped screwing anything that stayed still long enough. That was what led to him walking out and abandoning me in the middle of a fire fight on that mission in Belarus, thank you for finding that footage by the way, everyone agreed that that was what made the case for me."

She turned back to him. "Look, it wasn't a line, as I told Ellie, I've killed hundreds of people, I've tortured others without mercy and I've slept with disgusting perverts for the job, you don't want anyone like me in your life!" he met her eye. "OK, let's look at that shall we? The ones you killed, were they adversaries, or did you just kill indiscriminately?" She faltered "They were men, usually, that I came up against on missions." "So they were known baddies?" "Yes."

"Well my total is similar to your's, and probably half of them were just soldiers doing their jobs, so I think my ledger's worse than your's there, same question on the ones you tortured, known baddies to get what you needed, or did you just do it for fun?" She glared at him. "I only did it to get what I needed from the targets when other methods didn't work." "So that wasn't totally morally wrong either, the ones you slept with, did you have a choice?" She looked down "No, it was the only way to get out alive."

She was surprised when his hand gently gripped her chin and pulled her face up to look him in the eye, as she hadn't seen or heard him move. "How can you blame yourself for that then? While it wasn't for the job, being the biggest slut in California is a lot more reason to be ashamed than doing what it took to stay alive, and for the record, I'm very glad that you stayed alive, because the world's seems a better place to me with you in it."

Her heart melted at his final words, and she hit him in the arm for doing that to her so easily. He just kept looking her in the eye as he knelt in front of the couch. Sarah put her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder, whispering dejectedly "There's no way we can make this work, we can't keep pulling the wool over the eyes of Graham and the CIA." He pulled back a little to make her raise her head and look at him. "I think you're underestimating what a conniving, deceitful bastard I can be?" That got him a questioning look. "Possibly because I can't see you that way at all?" He smirked. "You'd be surprised, trust me?" She looked him in the eye for a moment and then nodded. He smiled and said "It'll be alright."

He smirked then. "So, are you brave enough to walk downstairs by yourself and see what happens?" She fixed him with a look. "Why don't YOU walk downstairs and see what happens?" "Because I already know what she'll do to ME, she's much more likely to be merciful to you." "Come on, I'll be right behind you, I just want to see what her reaction will be." "I thought you loved your sister?" "I do, but she was determined to push this thing with us to get the solution that she decided was the best thing, without asking us, so I think she deserves a little payback, don't you?" She looked at him for a bit "OK."

Sarah walked slowly down the stairs, Ellie coming to meet her in the living room when she walked in and faltering when she saw the crestfallen expression on Sarah's face. Sarah didn't say anything as Ellie tenderly pulled her into her arms, saying "I'm so sorry Sarah, I really thought he'd come around, he's just too stubborn for his own good!" Then Ellie suddenly stiffened and screamed "You bastard!" when she saw Chuck leaning against the wall in the opening from the stairs with a sardonic smile on his face.

She stepped back, glaring at Sarah and asking "How could you?" Sarah shrugged. "Well, he did have a point, in that you didn't actually ask us whether we really wanted this before you pushed us to make it happen, we're not saying we didn't but you should have asked first." Ellie glared at them for a little while longer, but the righteous indignation faded as she thought about what Sarah had said, until she nodded reluctantly. "OK, I shouldn't have made the decision for you, I'm sorry about that." Then she pointed her finger her finger at Chuck as she fixed him with a stare "But you're going to pay for doing it like this little brother, it was a low blow." Chuck nodded easily, accepting that there would be retributions but not overly worried about it.

At that, Sarah said that she should be going, but Chuck stopped her, pointing out that Graham would be easier to manage if he believed that she was handling the asset and keeping him under her control. "But he knows that I won't screw you to do that, I just had that argument with him today." He put his hand up to stop her. "Not screw, but calm me down so that I don't rabbit before you get everything in place, that's believable, and a friendly, helpful sap like I'm known to be would insist that you stay in our guest room because it's too late for you to get a room at a hotel." She nodded, as that made sense, and asked "So which guest room do I use?" Chuck said "Just take my room." But she shook her head "Not unless you're sharing it with me."

Annoyed by the shocked looks that both Chuck and Ellie gave her she snapped. "Not like that! We're both wiped out from the day we've had and need rest, I'm talking about sharing the bed, not sex!" She shot a look at Chuck "I thought you understood me better than that!" He stepped up to her and gently grasped her arms. "I do, sorry, but a lot of what we were talking about upstairs was about sex, and you just caught me off guard." Adding "I'm sorry" very softly. The look in his eyes as he said those last words made her heart melt again and she punched him in the arm, saying "Ellie's right, you are a bastard!"

Ellie smiled at that, yep, she was going to like having this girl around! Sarah said goodnight to Ellie and then told Chuck that, as he had far more muscles than she did, he could carry her bag back upstairs for her. Ellie fought a smile as she asked "Oh, and how do you know that?" Sarah glanced at her "Because he likes to stand around almost naked with the door open when he's playing with the computer." That made Ellie look at Chuck in surprise, as he was normally more modest than that, but he shrugged. "She was supposed to be getting ready in my room, I didn't expect her to pop in the door like that, and certainly not when she was wearing no more than I was."

Ellie was looking from one to the other now, and asked. "What the hell was going on here this afternoon?" Sarah blushed and said "Nothing! I was getting undressed to go have a shower and it suddenly occurred to me that his room didn't look at all lived in. For some reason I had to ask him about that straight away so I pulled my shirt around me and went down the hall, only to see him in all his glory, wearing nothing but his boxers. I guess I must have let go of my shirt in the shock of seeing him like that, because when I looked down, I was effectively wearing nothing by my underwear too." Ellie was grinning ear to ear and was obviously about to burst out laughing, so Sarah blushed even more, whirled and ran up the stairs. Chuck grinned and picked up her bag to follow her, kissing Ellie on the cheek and saying "Night El."

When he got upstairs, Sarah was sitting on the bed, boots off and working on the buttons of her blouse, he put her bag on the sofa under the window and went to kneel in front of her, asking "Are you OK?" She looked at him. "Yeah, it's just, everything got turned upside down today, it's been a bit traumatic, to tell you the truth." He nodded, then said "Look, I'll take the workroom, I'm usually in there anyway." "No, please? Could you just hold me? I normally want to be alone but after today, it would make me feel better." "OK, OK, I didn't want to crowd you, but if you're sure, there's nothing I'd like better than to spend the night holding you." She managed a smile at that and wrapped her arms around his neck for a hug, then getting up and crossing to her bag, digging through it for something to sleep in before heading into the ensuite.

Chuck stripped down to his boxers and slipped into bed while she was in there, when she came out, she dropped her clothes on top of her bag and came back to slip into the bed beside him, moving over to snuggle up to him with her head on his chest. After Chuck slipped his arm around her to draw her close, they settled down to get comfortable, and they were both asleep within fifteen minutes.

In the morning, Chuck carefully slipped out from under Sarah to avoid waking her (though he couldn't resist giving her a light kiss on the forehead) and went downstairs to head out for his pre-dawn run/parkour session. When he came back an hour later, Sarah and Ellie were sitting in the kitchen nook having coffee. When she took in his sweaty state, Sarah asked Ellie "Does he do this every morning?" "Pretty much, yeah." "I suppose the results are worth it, he does look good." "Yeah, but who ever sees it?" By this stage Chuck was getting tired of this so he cut in with a "Ah, hello, right here!", which got a grin from both of them. Sarah poured him a cup of coffee and handed it to him, which got her a soft "Thank you" as he met her eyes.

Once he'd had his coffee (and distracted Sarah with his cool down stretches on the floor while he was talking to them), Chuck went up for a shower, hearing a laughing "Shut up!" from Sarah, which in turn sparked more laughter from Ellie as he walked up the stairs.

When he headed into the shop, Sarah headed down to the CIA's L.A. Station again, to meet up with Casey and sort out the details of the assignment with their bosses, living arrangements, cover jobs, cover relationship etc. Graham was suspicious when General Beckman advised that the NSA had managed to contact the owners of Charlemagne Computers Etc and talk them into taking on two additional staff members for the Glendale store, as their existing staff were having trouble keeping up with the expanding workload in the area, but he could hardly argue that it was handy to have both agents in place where the asset was working.

For the living arrangements, the NSA had acquired a house just a few doors down from the asset's for Major Casey, which could be used as the team's base of operations as well. By this stage, Graham was getting pissed off, because all the indications were that the NSA was taking control of the operation, and he wasn't about to let that happen. He advised that Agent Walker would be living in serviced apartment near the CCE shop initially, but put all his attention into describing in detail the way she'd be starting a cover relationship with the asset immediately, and would be progressing that to sleeping over at his place as much as possible ASAP, with the view to moving in with him as soon as their cover stories would support that.

Sarah was staring daggers at the screen, as Graham was doing everything but outright ordering her to screw Chuck into submitting to his plans. She knew the bastard thought that he had her over a barrel, with an asset as important as the intersect, she couldn't kill him to avoid sex (as she'd done nearly every time in the past when Graham had pushed her into this position with mark), and she couldn't keep evading because this was expected to be a long term assignment. What's more, the CIA had dug up stories about Chuck screwing anything that moved through high school and university, so Graham had to be thinking that "He'll be on that like white in rice!"

In Graham's mind he finally had her where he'd wanted her all along, there was no way she could get out of screwing the mark this time, and she could see him gloating. She hid everything behind a rigid agent's mask for the remainder on the video conference, and then stormed out as soon as the call was disconnected. Casey ran after her, because as much as he wasn't about to show care for others, especially CIA people, he was disgusted by what he'd just had to listen to and wanted to make sure she was OK.

Sarah barged past everyone who got in her way, and Casey didn't manage to catch her until she was getting into her Porsche, at that point he only just managed to get her attention by screaming "WALKER!" at her from a few yards away (he wasn't about to touch her, any man who touched her at the moment was likely to be a dead man). When she stopped and turned to face him, seething with rage, he forcefully asked if she'd forgotten who she was dealing with here? Her face didn't change until he quietly said "Chuck".

When he saw that register he continued in the same quiet voice. "You know as well as I do that he would never touch you unless you wanted him to. It doesn't matter what that bastard (pointing back to the CIA Station) is planning, Chuck will do anything you want to convince Graham that you've screwed him into total submission, but he won't come near you except on your terms." "I've seen your eyes when you look at him, you know Chuck, and you know that I'm right on this, don't you?" The rage was still coursing through her body, so all Sarah could do at that point was nod tightly.

Casey watched her until she'd managed to get control of herself, then he started to turn away, only to stop and turn back when she called out "Casey" When he was looking her, she just said "Thank you", but what she'd just been through had shredded all her emotional armour, and he could see how heartfelt that simple statement was, he just nodded, and said he'd see her at the shop, as their schedule called for them to call in there first to get engaged in their cover jobs.

When Sarah walked into the shop, she went straight up to Chuck and threw herself into his arms. Casey entered and put the shop into lock down, and then the screen lit up with the General's image. The first thing she said was "Are you alright Sarah?" She didn't say anything, but nodded with her face buried in Chuck's chest. Chuck looked at the screen with hard eyes and asked "What happened?" in a tone that brooked nothing but total obedience. The General had seen what Chuck could do, but in the back of her mind he was still the adorable baby that she'd held the day he was born, so this hard commanding Chuck took her aback a little. She was trying to work out how to phrase this when Casey cut in.

"Graham, he basically ordered Sarah to do whatever it took to be sleeping over with you as much as possible straight away, and convince you of the benefits of moving in together in the near future." Sarah could feel Chuck's body tensing and laid her hand on his chest so he looked at her as she said "It's OK Chuck, Casey got it through to me that I had the thing I needed to make this alright." Chuck looked from her to Casey as he asked "What?", and Sarah managed a smile as she said "You!"

Chuck just looked at her, confused, so she went on "I'm sorry, Graham had me so enraged because he was sure he'd backed me into a corner where there was no way that I could get out of sleeping with the mark, you, that Casey actually had to remind me that that mark was you, and not only would nothing never happen that I didn't want to happen, you'd do everything to help me convince Graham that I was doing what he expected me to."

"You can do that, can't you, help me convince Graham so he'll leave me alone?" The look in Chuck's eye and his soft voice as he said "Of Course" made her breath catch, and they stayed with their arms around each other for a while. The General spoke again from the screen "I'm glad that that part has worked out Sarah, and I must admit that Major Casey did a better job of fixing this situation than I did, thank you Major Casey." Casey just nodded and she went on.

"Now you need to sign up your two new employees, so they can go and get their accommodation sorted out." Chuck felt that he, and everyone else, needed a bit of relief from the tension at this point, so he decided to take it. "Ah, General?" "Yes Chuck?" "It's my understanding that Charlemagne Computers Etc is a privately owned company now, so the government can't order us to hire anyone!" He could hear her trying to stifle a laugh as she said "I'm sorry Mr Bartek, it would be appreciated if you would consider the applications for two new positions in your firm. Is that better?" "Much, thank you."

While they didn't regard themselves as technical, Sarah and Casey were quite capable of handling the majority of the traditional work for CCE, and parts of the new security work too, so in fact, their addition to the team did relieve the workload of Chuck, Jeff and Anna. Casey and Sarah had settled into their new accommodations, and with Casey only a few doors down, it was a simple matter to walk down there for the NSA/CIA briefings.

Sarah's sleepovers started out at once a week, and sometimes two, for the first month and a half or so, then two, and sometimes three, for the next month and a half and so on. While it wasn't progressing as fast as Graham was expecting, it was the General who'd pointed out that Mr Bartek's records showed him to be an exceedingly intelligent man, so they couldn't afford to tip him off by being too obvious. Combining that with the fact that there were no records of Mr Bartek being with anyone since he'd caught Bryce Larkin having sex with his soon to be fiancé meant that they had to play this very carefully with him. Graham had to grudgingly concede her points.

While Chuck had offered that she take his room and he take the workroom when she stayed, Sarah had actually asked him to stay with her when she was there, because whenever they slept together, she didn't have her nightmares, and she got the best rest that she'd gotten since she started in this business. Chuck had to agree that he rather enjoyed sleeping with Sarah in his arms, too. So all in all, things were working out pretty good on that front.

They did have one hiccup, though, when word came through that the acquisition of the building down the street was about to go ahead, Chuck had to point out that Graham and the CIA were now aware of Charlemagne Computers Etc, so the transfer couldn't be done to that company without attracting too much attention. Luckily, back when it had been agreed that Piranha Security & Technology was the best name to move forward with, Chuck had gotten the company established and registered (also under the names of Charles Carmichael and Eleanor Charlemagne), so they just had the disposal paperwork amended from Charlemagne Computers Etc to Piranha Security & Technology.

The money wasn't an issue either, while they were processing intel for all their DCS projects, they kept coming across a lot of corporate intel as well, and their analytic skills meant that they could translate the intel they found into very good investments, so their $11.7 million had grown to $31.6 million before the markets got too unstable and they'd decided to park it somewhere safe, offshore.

Just after Sarah's sleepover schedule got it's first bump, the NSA/CIA team got its first actual mission, which was good because Casey especially was going stir crazy, and Jeff, for one, quite often didn't know when to stop winding him up. The mission came out of one of Chuck's flashes of information, one that said an internationally renowned arms dealer, and killer, La Ciudad, was going to be at an art auction in L.A. so they (or at least Chuck) needed to be there as there were no known pictures of La Ciudad. As they were in a bit of a hurry, they decided that Chuck could use the Charles Carmichael ID, as the CIA weren't among the ones who'd had any reason to check "behind" the John Smith ID.

Sarah came over to Casa Bartek to get ready for the mission, as the walk in wardrobe and ensuite in Chuck's room (well, it was pretty much THEIR room now, she spent as much time as he did in it) were way better than what she had in her serviced apartment, and Casey's place was just a few doors down, though he was picking them up at Casa Bartek in a limo that night.

Chuck got a flash of information soon after they got to the auction which linked a man he saw with La Ciudad, and Sarah went to engage the man in an attempt to find out what the connection was. Chuck hated that she had to flirt with men like that for this job, and he looked away, thinking (correctly) that it would be harder for her with him watching. That was why it was only Casey who saw Sarah being led away at gunpoint. Chuck argued when Casey told him to stay there, but quickly capitulated and told Casey to go after Sarah when he pointed out that a) he didn't have a gun, and b) as far as the CIA and everyone else knew he wasn't an agent, and it had to stay that way.

In an effort to think about something other than worrying about Sarah (and Casey), Chuck started wandering around the auction, as would be expected of a potential buyer. As soon as he did so though, he had another flash, on a painting that was up for auction (or more to the point, the frame of the painting, as it had a container of plutonium hidden in it), and he went over to have a closer look. While he was looking at the frame, someone started talking to him, and when he looked up and saw the latin beauty in front of him, he slipped into his Gancanagh persona.

When Chuck had started getting interested in girls just after his mother left, he didn't know who to talk to, his mother was gone, he wasn't going to talk to Ellie about something like that, even when his father was "there" he didn't know anything about people, and Uncle Bry was more of a hero than a ladies' man, but then he'd realised that he knew just the person to talk to, Uncle Roan, because he WAS a ladies' man.

Uncle Roan had told him that it was important to be sincere and respect a lady. A sincere compliment, no matter how small, was worth far more than any amount of empty flattery, and respecting someone meant paying attention to them and listening to them. He'd ended his advice with "And that, Charles, is the secret of being a Gancanagh, a love talker, be sincere and respect the lady and she will respect you, and like you."

Chuck tried to follow Uncle Roan's advice at school and he soon found that he was right, he could talk to the girls easily, and they did like him for who he was. That got him into fights sometimes though because the bigger, older boys tended to get angry when the girls brushed them off to talk to Chuck. Then, when Chuck's HeHo phase started, he was in "Gancanagh" mode most of the time he was around the girls, because while "Gancanagh" wasn't that much different from "Chuck", it was a lot more focused on the girl, calm, and confident.

So when Chuck slipped into "Gancanagh", he found it easier to talk to Malena and they chatted for a little while, until the music of the tango started and she looked wistful, saying "I LOVE the tango", before looking at him and asking "Do you dance?" Chuck looked around quickly but Sarah and Casey weren't back, so he thought 'Why not?' and led her onto the dance floor, not knowing that while he was doing this, Sarah and Casey were in the middle of a stand off with the men who'd taken Sarah, who'd turned out to be British MI6 agents operating there without authority.

The tango went well, but as he dipped Malena at the end, he saw the scar on her neck and got another flash, one that showed him that Malena was actually La Ciudad. He was trying to work out how to keep her there until Sarah and Casey got back when one of Larkin's blow hard frat boy buddies from Stanford came up, half drunk, calling him Chuck, and Karol Bartek, before going on about how successful HE was now. He tried to get rid of the idiot but the damage was done, as he could see the suspicion on Malena's face now. He'd caught the signals that she was sending, so he wasn't too surprised when he felt a pistol being pressed into his back.

Chuck remembered what Casey had said about not letting anyone know what he was and decided that he couldn't make a scene while they were at the auction, so he let them lead him away, hoping that Sarah and Casey would get to them before he was forced to show his cards. In the room, they tied him up and Malena started trying to intimidate him, he gave in and admitted to Karol Bartek, Chuck, being his real name around where a civilian would crack, then she started going through the options of getting information out of him, yanking out a tooth, cutting off a toe, chucking him off the balcony (she liked that one, going on about the play on words).

When she thought he'd been intimidated enough, she asked him who he worked for, but not accepting his answer that he worked for a computer repair company, she told her men to throw him off the balcony. When they picked up the chair and started carrying him towards the balcony, Chuck played the panic stricken civilian, telling her that he'd just snuck in under a fake name to try and impress a girl he was interested in, and when that didn't do any good, he told her he could tell her something about the painting.

That at least got the chair put down and she told him to go on. Figuring that she knew about the plutonium as that was what she was there for, he told her about the frame being changed, and then she asked him to tell her how to fix a computer. After a few minutes of detailed explanation she stopped him, saying that she believed him, but smirked as she said that the problem was that he'd seen her face, so she had to kill him. She taunted him a bit more as she screwed a suppressor onto her pistol and he was steeling himself to go into action when they heard a commotion outside the door.

Malena and her men started firing madly at the door and the front wall of the room while Chuck knocked the chair over, breaking it up as he did so. As their attention was on the front of the room and the gunshots coming from there, Chuck made quick work of taking down and taking out Malena and her men (he wasn't about to stand up and catch one of his own team's bullets), then called out to tell Sarah and Casey that they could stop shooting now.

As soon as they'd burst into the room and Sarah made sure Chuck was OK, Casey secured Malena (or more to the point, La Ciudad) and her men and called in a team to take them into custody, he also called in an NSA cleaner team to fix all the damage made in the fire fight.

After that, they all went back to Casey's to report the results to the General and Graham (being careful to portray Chuck as a helpless victim), before Chuck and Sarah were finally free to go back to Casa Bartek to get some rest.


	11. Fifty Shades Of Red

**Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

They were all laying about the living room of Casa Bartek, Ellie had decided that they needed a good old fashioned games night, and no-one was about to say no to her when she was in that state of mind. It was turning out to be a fun night, mainly for Ellie, Casey and Jeff as they came out with stories about Chuck when he was younger, but everyone was enjoying it, even if Chuck was turning fifty shades of red.

About halfway through the night, though, Sarah and Casey started looking at each other, because they, and Chuck, could feel that they were being watched. Chuck casually draped his arm over the end of the couch so he could reach the integrated keyboard laying there, using it to bring up the big LED screen on the wall (which he'd made sure was positioned so that it couldn't be seen from the outside) and bring up the external cameras, flicking through them until they found their watcher and zooming in on them.

When they got a good look at the intruder, Sarah dived on Chuck and started a pretty full on make out session with him. After their initial shock, the others laughed and made cracks about it, because they knew that it was related to the image up on the screen that they weren't supposed to be looking at. The discussion that the make out session was covering up was mostly businesslike, after. "Sarah! Less tongue, I can't think when you do that!" (Sarah actually giggled at that).

"Sorry, our visitor is Carina Miller, my old CAT Squad partner and friend, I trust her as much as anyone outside of this room, but I don't know where her head is nowadays as I haven't had a chance to see her, or even talk to her as much as I'd like, for a while. After the CAT Squad were broken up, the DEA threw her right back into the same shit she was forced to do before, she's been forced to sleep with more men than we've killed and I don't know how she's kept a shred of sanity through all of that shit."

She could see that Chuck was horrified by what she was telling him, and being Chuck his reaction was "Can we find some way to help her get out of all that?" Sarah pulled back to look him in the eyes, and the kiss that she came back with was totally different from the frenzied cover make out session that they'd had before. "That would be great if we could, but I need to talk to her first to find out why she's here, if it's a mission I'll text you and we'll meet you and Casey at Casey's to talk about it, if it's something else, I'll take her back to my apartment and talk things out with her there, is that OK?" "Of course, whatever works for her, if you need me just call me."

"You are a beautiful man Chuck, and while it's tempting to leave her out there all night and enjoy this, I think I should find out what this is about." With a final kiss, Sarah climbed off him and said that she needed to get some sleep because the boss was such a slave driver (which got a laugh), before going to kiss Ellie goodbye, grabbing her keys and heading out the front door. Once she was outside, she walked straight to the side of the house where Carina was, calling out. "Come out Carina, you must be getting sloppy, because I could tell that it was you."

* * *

Carina appeared in the light, swearing. "There was no way you made me!" That made Sarah smirk at her as she said. "I think the fact that we're standing here like this shows that I DID, Red." Carina grumbled a bit more but Sarah had to cut her off. "Are you here for work, Carina, or are you here as a friend?" Carina started rambling on and avoiding the question, but Sarah couldn't afford the time to let her play these games so she snapped at her. "Cut it out Carina! Are you here for work or not? If you don't give me a straight answer I'll go back inside and that will be that!" Carina looked at her with a sullen expression and then snapped "Yes, it's for work, Alright?"

Sarah nodded, pulling out her cell phone and sending a text before saying "OK, come on" as she led the way to Casey's place. When they got there she let them in with her access and waved Carina to the couch, heading into the kitchen to snag a couple of bottles of booze and four glasses. Casey and Chuck came in as she was putting these on the coffee table and Casey growled when he saw his best whiskey out, but when Sarah looked at Carina, he conceded the point and nodded, with Miller here they were probably going to need it.

When they seated (Sarah close to Chuck's side again, Carina noted), Sarah looked at Carina and said "OK Red, spill!" Carina flicked a look at Sarah and Casey (lingering on Casey) before turning her attention to Chuck as she was saying "I know you two, but who's this?" Chuck just said "I'm Chuck, the new guy" and Sarah cut in with "Chuck's our analyst, he's part of our team now." Carina started going on about not being comfortable trusting her operation to someone she didn't know and Sarah came back with "Well, tough, we're a package deal now, so if you want my help you'll work with my team!"

As this was starting to escalate and Sarah had already slipped up once (probably without noticing, but package deal?), Casey swore and picked up the integrated keyboard to initiate a video link to the General. She was in bed when she came on and looked both flustered and worried. "What's wrong? What's happened?…. What's Agent Miller doing there?" "That's what we've been trying to find out General, but we're not having much luck with that." "I see, Agent Miller, will you wait outside while I talk to my team, please?" Carina said "Yes ma'am" as she stood and walked to the front door (snagging a glass and the bottle of vodka to take with her).

They waited until the door latched behind her before anyone said anything, the the General started. "Miss Miller is here because Graham has done a deal with one of his DEA buddies to help her grab a drug diamond from a drug financier's Malibu mansion. As it's Graham's deal, it'd be best to wait for the briefing that you'll be called to in the morning to go into the details, to let him think that he's in control." They nodded, but just before she cut off the link, she added. "And Sarah, you may want to be careful about that (pointing down) while Graham's on the line." They looked down to see that Sarah was gripping Chuck's hand tightly. Casey kicked himself, how had he missed that? And more to the point, had Miller seen it?

They quickly agreed that Sarah should try and find out where Carina stood in this, so Sarah was going to try and get her to stay with her that night and see if she could get her to talk. With that decided, Sarah went up on tip toe to kiss Chuck goodnight and they headed for the door. When they went out on the porch, Sarah said "We can't get anything from our bosses until the briefing in the morning, so do you have a room Carina, or do you want to stay with me?" "I'll stay with you if that's OK?"

* * *

Sarah nodded "Let's get going then." as they turned to leave, Casey said "Miller?", holding his hand out. Carina smirked, downing what was in the glass and handing it and the bottle to him with a "Thanks Johnny" before she followed Sarah off the porch. They could see them talking on the footpath and Carina pointing down the street, so that Sarah started her Porsche and moved it down the street, pulling up near the Mustang that Carina had pointed to.

After the two cars had taken off in what was obviously going to be a race back to Sarah's apartment, Casey held up the bottle and grimaced as he saw that Carina had polished off nearly a third of it in the short time she'd been out there. With that, Chuck shook his head and said that he'd see Casey in the morning before walking back to the house.

When he walked in, the others were still there, waiting for an explanation, so he told them. "Our visitor was Carina Miller, a friend of Sarah's that she used to be partnered with, we're being assigned to help her on an assignment she has here, that's all I know at this point. She'd bound to be around us while she's here, so just remember, you're all civilians." With that, Ellie and Anna saluted him with a facetious "Yes, Sir!" and they called it a night.

As they walked into Sarah's apartment, Carina was saying that the only reason Sarah had beaten her was that she knew the local shortcuts, and Sarah laughed at her, saying "Yeah, just keep telling yourself that Red." Sarah waved her hand around the studio apartment and said that it looked like they'd have to share the bed again. The look in Carina's eye as she said "I guess I can put up with that" pained Sarah, because after the relief from her nightmares that she got from sleeping with Chuck, she had a new understanding of what that had meant to Carina, and she didn't want to think about what she was going through most of the time.

When Carina said "I'm glad to see that you've gotten over the whole Bryce thing", Sarah said "That's just our cover to convince the civilians in his life that's why I'm here, us being boyfriend and girlfriend." Carina snorted at that, starting to say "Yeah, right.." when Sarah cut her off urgently with a raised hand. She pulled a device out of the purse she'd brought up from her Porsche and swept the apartment, leaving it activated in case someone turned on any bugs that were there, but currently turned off.

"OK, it's not just a cover, but the CIA and NSA has to think it is or I'll get reassigned!" She turned to Carina with a smile "Do you remember what I told you about the guy I met when I went to a twenty first party just before Graham grabbed me and dragged me into the CIA?" Carina nodded "That was Chuck, his name is actually Karol, so you can imagine how shocked I was when I turned up to meet the team and I saw Chuck there!"

That got a laugh out of Carina, and Sarah could see that she hadn't had much to laugh about in the past couple of years. Sarah pulled out a bottle and a couple of glasses and they settled down to talk about their lives since the CAT Squad was broken up. Carina's story was as terrible as Sarah had thought it would be, Sarah's hadn't been good through the Bryce period, but nothing like what Carina had had to go through.

When Carina started asking what Sarah and the team were doing here, Sarah wanted to tell her, but Carina was too much of an unknown in her current state, so she couldn't risk it and she just had to evade her questions. She tried to feel her out a little about whether she'd be interested in a quieter life with less disgusting bastards in it, but while it sounded like something that Carina did think sounded nice, she couldn't get anything definitive from her (the three empty bottles laying on the floor in front of them may have been part of the reason for that though).

Through the night, Carina's nightmares were worse than they'd been back in Paris, but Sarah managed to settle her down fairly quickly each time. In the morning, neither of them were in any fit state to face the world, but they had to get up to head back to Casey's for the briefing with the General and Graham. They headed out in Carina's Mustang so that Sarah could leave her Porsche in the apartments' secure parking area.

* * *

When they turned up, Casey snorted at seeing the state they were in, but greeted Carina with a mug of coffee and asked her nicely if she could wait on the porch while they had their briefing with their bosses. Carina thanked him for the coffee and settled down on the porch swing without complaint.

When the video link came up, Graham asked what Chuck was doing there, and the General told him that she'd asked Major Casey to bring the asset because from what she'd been told, the whole reason for the team being assigned to the case was to make use of the Intersect? Graham grudgingly agreed and proceeded with the briefing, telling them that they were to assist Carina in acquiring a diamond from Peyman Alahi's compound in Malibu.

When he said that they were to take Chuck to Alahi's compound to get the Intersect data on the alarm system and set up the operation for the following day, Sarah thought that she had to make at least a token protest so it wouldn't look like they were giving in too easily, so she went in with "Sir, Carina is a tremendous field agent, but we can't trust her, Chuck is way too valuable."

Graham ignored her, carrying on to say that Alahi had wider connections outside of the drug trade and the intel was that the diamond was being moved within the next seventy two hours, so Casey had a try "Ah, I've had dealings with Carina in the past too, she can be a bit of a, wild card." Graham just dismissed that with "We're aware of what happened in Prague, Agent Casey, which is why you and Agent Walker will return the diamond to us, under no circumstances should Carina be entrusted with it."

That led to a smirk from Sarah, and Chuck could see Aunt D trying to hold one down too, so that was obviously something to find out about, but he stayed quiet until the end of the briefing. When the General and Graham disconnected the link, Sarah went to get Carina in and they discussed the mission, Carina was still doing the initial setup with Alahi's crowd, but they'd be going in as part of Alahi's perpetual pool party (he liked being surrounded by women without many clothes on) the next day to do their recon as it was more believable on a Saturday than during the week.

* * *

While they were there, Carina kept trying to get details of their current operation out of them, and was getting frustrated when they kept stonewalling her. When they finished nutting out the details for the following day, Chuck, Sarah and Casey headed into the CCE shop to get their cover work done and Carina headed off to do her thing. Unfortunately for Carina, the shop, like Casa Bartek, had far more security monitoring equipment than any cover business would be expected to have, so they caught her trying to do surveillance on the shop.

Sarah slipped out via the loading dock out back and swung around the block so that she came up behind Carina's Mustang and knocked on the window. When Carina let her in the car, she put a signal jammer in the console and told her "Yes, there are things going on here that we aren't telling you just yet Carina, I wish I could fill you in, but I can't at the moment, just stop pushing please?"

She looked imploringly at her "We'll help you get the diamond away from Alahi, we'll turn it in so you'll get the credit for the operation, and we're trying to come up with a way to get you out of the situation you're in now, but you have to trust me." Carina looked at her "So you want me to trust you but you don't trust me enough to let me in on what you're doing here? It doesn't sound like I'm getting much out of this Blondie."

Sarah had tears in her eyes as she told her that she was giving her as much as she could at the moment, and got out of the car to walk back to the shop. Chuck looked at her when she came in but she shook her head, so he just put his arms around her and held her. After a while she pulled away and looked at him. "Chuck, I love Carina like a sister but the way she is now, I'm not sure we can trust her, she's as wild and unpredictable as she ever was, if not more, and she's likely to pull some crazy stunt. I need you to stay with me when we're in there tomorrow." She wouldn't let that go until he agreed, and they tried to concentrate on the work after that, with limited luck.

* * *

That night, Carina said she was busy when Sarah called to suggest that they go out clubbing, so Sarah stayed with Chuck. In the morning, Casey headed out to get a limo from the CIA garage, then came back to take them to the party. Carina was still standoffish so they just walked around the building cataloguing the security setup, and things started to really go off plan when Carina made a key card for the room where the diamond was, because instead of leaving as soon as she'd confirmed that it worked, she went straight in to look at the diamond.

Sarah was trying to get her to leave when they heard guns being cocked behind them. When they turned to see Alahi and two of his guards, Sarah went into ditzy valley girl mode to try and talk their way out of the situation. She got pissed off with Carina when she introduced them as sisters and Chuck as their brother, but that was something she was going to have to take up with her later because Alahi immediately started to get very handsy with her. Given the fact that Alahi was obviously taken with her, it made sense for her to be the one who had to take him out of the room and distract him, while trying not to show the disgust she was feeling as he kept touching her.

Inside the room, Chuck got a flash of intel about additional security features for the diamond that Alahi hadn't mentioned when he was boasting that it couldn't be stolen, like the twenty thousand volts that were running through the stand and would light up anyone who tried to grab it. When Carina asked how that could be circumvented when they came back for it, he said that something like compressed air could be used to blow it off the stand, or that fire extinguisher that was on the wall.

Chuck freaked out when she immediately grabbed the fire extinguisher and shot a blast at the diamond to blow it off the pedestal, but managed to catch the diamond as it went flying. Kicking a stand over to block the door coming down to seal off the room and destroying a possibly priceless bust in the process, Carina did a quite passable little league slide to get out under the door, leaving Chuck to follow her while she and Sarah took out the guards that were arriving (Alahi had sent the first two guards away when he thought he was going to get to play with two sisters, and Sarah had knocked him out when the alarms went off).

As soon as Chuck had slid out under the door, Sarah grabbed his hand and they ran, with Sarah and Carina taking on the guards who kept popping up in front of them. Sarah sent a call to Casey to meet them on the beach because Carina had improvised and grabbed the diamond, so Casey took out the guard who was running past him and started for the limo, before changing his mind and taking the Hummer that was there (it was probably Alahi's anyway).

Casey turned up just as they were cornered by the guards on the beach and laid down covering fire while they got in. Back at Casey's, Carina wasn't at all happy when Casey made a point of smugly putting the diamond in the safe there before they headed down to the shop to get some of the work that CCE was expected to deliver on a Saturday done, but Sarah was still too angry about the stunt she'd pulled at Alahi's compound to remember that Carina was quite capable of breaking into a safe like that.

* * *

When the alarms for Casey's place went off in the shop, Sarah suddenly remembered about Carina's safe cracking abilities and swore, jumping on the computer to do a search on hotel reservations in the area to try and find one in the name of one of Carina's known aliases. Unfortunately she found about ten reservations in the names that Carina had used, so she ran back to the apartments to get her Porsche and head out to check them out. Chuck had wanted to go with her, but she told him that she needed to sort this out with Carina herself.

Chuck put another hour's work in and then headed home to wait for Sarah. As usual he changed into sweats and jumped on the computer in the workroom to catch up on their backlog (they always had a backlog), but about ten minutes after he'd started, the external motion sensors pushed an image of the rear deck up on screen, and he saw Carina, rocking back and forth and crying, so he headed down there to see if she was OK.

When he sat down beside her, Carina turned to him and buried her face in his chest, saying how sorry she was, and she just needed to get Sarah to forgive her. Chuck put his arm around her, rubbing her back as he pulled out his phone and called Sarah to tell her that she could stop looking for Carina. When she responded by asking him to find Carina and tell her to bring the diamond, at first he thought she was still so angry that she hadn't heard him, but then his blood ran cold when he realised what had happened, so he said he'd try to find her, hanging up.

The way he'd stiffened got through to Carina and she'd pulled back to look at him. The face she saw when he turned to her and told her to give him the diamond was totally different from the man that she'd seen up to now and it, quite frankly, terrified her. She asked him what was going on and he told her that Sarah had gone looking for her and now Alahi had her, and he was holding her to get his diamond back, repeating "Give, me, the, diamond!"

"No, no Chuck, Sarah wouldn't forgive me if anything happened to you, I'll get her back." Chuck just ripped the diamond out of her hand, telling her "At the moment I don't trust you to save her, just leave it to the people who love her" as he turned and walked inside, pulling off the sweats he was wearing and pulling on jeans and a shirt he got from the laundry. While he was doing that, he called out "Casey! Outside in two minutes, Alahi has Sarah and we're going to get her", hearing a "Roger" over the speakers. When he got to the van, stuffing a pair of pistols in the back of his jeans, Carina was standing there, looking him in the eye and telling him that she was coming with him, she put Sarah in this and she was going to help get her out of it. He looked at her briefly and then nodded, hopping in and tearing out of the drive, barely doing a stop and go to pick up Casey outside his place.

Carina couldn't believe how fast this van could go, or the way that Chuck was driving it, drifting it though tight city streets at three times the speed of the rest of the cars, it was a safe bet that no-one had ever driven from Glendale to the hotel in Santa Monica anywhere near that quickly before. He'd slowed down to drop Casey off around the corner, so by the time he parked the van on the street outside the hotel, there was nothing to draw attention to the van, other than the smell of burning rubber emanating from it.

As they were walking into the foyer, Carina whispered to him "Let me do the talking, please?" and he nodded just enough for her to see. Carina's dialogue with Alahi had two purposes, the first to wind up Alahi and the second to give Casey time to get in place from the back. Chuck was keeping up his terrified civilian act as he identified Alahi's men, which was apparently everyone in that half of the foyer at the time.

Carina kept winding up Alahi until she switched to Swedish to cue Sarah up when to move (because she'd seen Casey behind her), and when Sarah burst into action, all hell broke loose. Alahi had over a dozen men with him, but in less than twenty seconds they were all down, half dead, half incapacitated, and they hadn't managed to get a single shot off.

Alahi was one of the ones who went down with a bullet between the eyes, because Sarah had seen him staring at Chuck after he'd taken out over half his men, and she couldn't afford word of what he'd seen getting back to the CIA or anyone else. Aside from that, she was going to have to shower a few dozen times to get the feel of his slimy touch off her skin, so she was pretty sure she was doing the world a favour.

* * *

Luckily, the General and Graham had been in meetings the last time they'd been back at Casey's, so they'd merely sent word that they'd been successful and arranged for an Agency courier to be sent out to pick up the diamond. The courier and his escort had picked up the diamond just before the video link from the General and Graham came up, so they didn't have to worry about it being stolen from them again and they were a little more relaxed as they gave their reports.

While they didn't try to cover up Carina's improvisation in Alahi's compound, they did gave it a spin so it looked like the optimal solution. They left out any mention of Carina stealing the diamond from Casey's, and it was Carina who was grabbed by Alahi and his men and just Sarah and Casey who saved her in the version that they told, Chuck wasn't even there according to what the General and Graham were told.

Their bosses were happy with the outcome, and while the DEA probably would have preferred that the diamond came to them, there was little market for a diamond like that, especially after word got around that it disappeared when the drug financier who had it was gunned down in a shootout with federal agents, so Carina was in a fairly good space too. As soon as the video conference was finished, they got up, Sarah grabbed Carina and they went straight to Chuck's.

* * *

The screen lit up a few minutes after they walked in the door, the woman on the screen was nothing but General as she barked "What happened?" They were trying to work out what to tell her when Carina stepped forward.

"It was me, I got angry when Sarah asked me to trust her without sharing anything about what was going on here, so I decided to grab the diamond when we were in Alahi's mansion. After they left to go to work I broke into Casey's and stole the diamond from the safe, but they obviously had a remote alarm because Sarah went looking for me to get it back, and probably to repay me for what I did to her while we were in the mansion."

She stopped to draw a breath before going on. "The problem at that was that when Sarah found the hotel I was staying at, Alahi and his men were there looking for me as well, and they grabbed her to use her to get the diamond back. Chuck found me sitting out the back here, because I'd come back to try and straighten things out with Sarah, but when he called Sarah to tell her he'd found me, he found out that Alahi had her."

Carina turned to look at Chuck. "At that point your "analyst" here turned into Rambo on steroids, he took the diamond off me and went inside to get changed, calling out something to Casey, I don't know what because it got cut off when the doors closed. I went to his van to make him take me with him to help save Sarah, and then after picking up Casey without stopping we headed down to my hotel faster than I would have believed possible. When we got there I stalled them until Casey was in position behind them and then gave Sarah the signal. I think I only got about three or four shots off, because Rambo took out most of them and Casey and Sarah took out the rest. So it was all my fault."

Everyone was silent until the General quietly spoke with an annoyed voice "Stop calling him Rambo please, Carina, if you aren't going to call him Chuck at least use the name that was given to him for this." Carina looked at Chuck as she asked "What name is that?" whipping her head around to look at Sarah when she answered "Mowgli", Carina then looked at Casey as he nodded with a proud grunt.

Carina was staring at Chuck, but speaking to Sarah "Are you telling me that the guy that you were pining over for five years because Graham grabbed you to drag you into the CIA the day after you met him, is fucking Mowgli, the same guy we all spent two years talking about?" Sarah's "Yes" was barely audible, but they did hear it.

The General cleared her throat, and they all turned to face the screen again. "What are we going to do about you Miss Miller?" Carina just looked at her without changing expression as she realised that the most logical thing to happen was for her to disappear, but the General went on. "No-one would expect Sarah to deal with you because she cares too much about you, and Chuck would never dream of hurting her by doing anything to you, but I think Major Casey's concern for Chuck would override his concerns about Sarah's feelings, and I know that Chuck's Godfather and Mother would certainly place Chuck's well being over everything else, before you scoff, Chuck's Godfather is Agent Mills and his mother is Agent Frost, and I'm pretty sure you know those two names." She looked at Carina for a while and then said "But I don't think we need to worry about that, do we Carina? I'm banking on the fact that you're going to choose to join us, now that you know who we are?"

Carina just kept looking at the screen as she said "I'd love to, but the DEA has never been willing to release me, because they can't find anyone to replace me in what I do." As they were behind her, she didn't see the expressions of anger that crossed over Sarah and Chuck's faces at her words, but the General did. "Let me worry about that, if you want out of there, I'll get you out of there, so do you?" Carina almost broke down "Yes, please."

She felt Sarah's arms go around her as the General spoke again. "Special Agent Carmichael, will you assist me by preparing the case to push through getting Agent Miller released from the DEA and assigned to your team, please?" Carina whipped her head around to look at Chuck when he quietly said "Yes ma'am" in answer to that question.

The others didn't seem to find it strange that Chuck just left the room and went upstairs without another word at that point but the General answered the question written all over Carina's face "He's gone to start preparing that case, in a few hours I'll have something to get the President to sign off to get you transferred to the DIA."

"DIA? I thought you were NSA ma'am?" The General smiled "The NSA is my public hat, but for the past thirteen years I've been commanding a team in the Defense Clandestine Services that's had a significant impact across the military and intelligence communities. That team has done so much and has such a reputation for integrity that the President will sign off on any requests coming from it, almost sight unseen, that is where you'll be transferred to, as long as you don't mind working for Special Agent In Charge Carmichael?"

Carina looked at the screen "Not at all…. General, who IS he? He appears to have so many different identities that I have no idea who he is!" The General mused, almost to herself at first. "Well, to me his most important identity is as my Godson, but that's not really relevant to anyone else, he is the son of one of my best friends, Agent Frost, but for a number of reasons Frost and his father had to disappear when he and his sister were young, so his Godfather and I tried to keep an eye out for them. Ellie is the only one who can claim any accolades for raising him to be the man he is, though." After that she looked at Carina.

* * *

"Chuck is the closest thing to a real identity he has, Karol Bartek was the identity given to him when he was twelve when we moved him and Ellie to somewhere safer. When he was thirteen he started working for the government, in my team, and he acquired four other identities to operate under within the government, Charles Carmichael, John Smith, Charles Gancanagh and Max Powers."

"When he was fourteen he acquired the identity of the Piranha, one of the best hackers in the United States, if not the world, and when he was fifteen he also acquired the identity of Mowgli, the special operations legend. His government identities are all commissioned, US Navy Commander Carmichael, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Smith, US Air Force Major Gancanagh and US Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel Powers, Carmichael and Smith are also DIA Agents, while Gancanagh is an NSA Agent and Powers is an FBI Agent. They're his primary identities, he uses cover identities at times like everybody else in the business, but they're his core identities."

"Well, he did have another identity for a while, but that one's history now, isn't it Sarah?" Sarah nodded with a smile, and after a pause the General added "While Chuck's upstairs, why don't you take Carina downstairs and show her the wall, that may give her an idea about part of who Chuck is?" After the screen blanked and they started to turn to head downstairs, though, the screen lit up again and she added. "One more thing, sorry, Carina, but at first I think we'll need to keep you based out of D.C. to keep you out of sight of the people who are watching the team in L.A. We'll try to get past that as soon as possible, but it's really for your protection." Carina glanced at Sarah and saw that she seemed inclined to trust the General in this, so she nodded and said "Yes, ma'am" to the screen, the General nodded and the screen went blank again.

When they went downstairs, Carina was impressed by the gym and games room they had down there, but was a little worried when they went into one of the guest rooms, closing the door behind them, and Sarah led her into the closet. Carina could hardly believe it when Sarah opened the hidden door in the back of the closet and led her into the Bunker. Like Sarah when she first saw it, she was amazed that this was down there and spent a bit of time poking around, but her jaw dropped when Sarah showed her the wall.

The main change to the wall was that there was a new section added for Sarah Walker, it had certificates from her training with the CIA, for her degrees, and for the CIA records that she'd won and held. It also showed that she held the rank of USN Lieutenant Commander, USA Captain, USAF Captain and USMC Captain, was a CIA Agent and DIA Special Agent, Naval Aviator, USAF Pilot, USA Aviator and had a few medals, the highest being the Silver Star medal, it also had a number of pictures from her training, some missions and award ceremonies.

Carina was impressed by Sarah's section, and what she saw of Casey's section, but when Sarah dragged her to Chuck's section she was riveted, so much that they were still there when Chuck finally came down. Sarah looked at him when he walked in, reaching her hand out to him. When he got to her he took her hand and pulled her in for a kiss, but she pulled back a little afterwards to get a good look at his face before smiling and coming in for a hug, quietly asking if it had gone off?

Chuck's response of "Yeah, I sent it through to Aunt D, so as long as she can get in to see the Eagle tomorrow it should be done by tomorrow night." surprised Carina, to say the least, so she asked "Are you telling me that whatever you put together in the last hour and a half can override all the red tape and get me transferred out of the DEA and into your team in one day?"

Chuck looked tired as he said "Yeah, well, General Beckman has a lot of clout in these circles, especially when she has a Presidential signature on the paperwork." Sarah looked exasperated with him as she added "And so does Special Agent in Charge Carmichael, that's what the General was referring to about the President signing off anything he gets from the team, it's because he trusts him."

Knowing that he wasn't going to win, Chuck suggested that they head upstairs and get dinner ready, as he was looking forward to a quiet night, the two women agreed, though Carina asked if a quiet night could include coming down for a few games of snooker or pool, and giving the bar a workout, and Chuck agreed to that with a laugh.


	12. Family Matters

**Usual disclaimer for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

* * *

Until Carina was transferred out of the DEA and into their DCS team, it was agreed that she'd stay out of sight in Casa Bartek. She spent much of that time in the gym downstairs, working with Chuck, Ellie and Sarah to put together an exercise regime that would get her closer to their levels. She'd almost killed herself trying to keep up with them on their pre-dawn run/parkour session, because she wasn't close to a match for Chuck, Casey, Sarah, or even Ellie, and that was rather embarrassing for someone who was used to being ahead of nearly everyone else.

She did have to be careful around Chuck when he was dressed for working out, though, because he looked so hot like that he turned her on. Quite aside from not wanting to upset Sarah, because she could see how much they meant to each other, she was pretty sure that getting caught lusting after Sarah Walker's guy would be a very dangerous thing to do.

It was actually a few days before the transfer got processed because the President was out of the country until then, and Carina was starting to wonder whether they'd be able to pull it off, but as soon as he was back in in the US of A, the papers were signed. By 14:00 D.C. time that day a very pissed off Administrator of Drug Enforcement had formally released Special Agent Carina Miller from the DEA, and by 15:00 that day she was formally inducted as a DIA Special Agent and they were processing everything else for her identity as part of the team.

The DEA was asking a lot of questions about who had the pull to get the President to force the issue like this, because what he'd signed left absolutely no latitude for the DEA to appeal against or even delay their orders. They were told in very precise terms that Special Agent Carina Miller was to be formally released from the DEA immediately, that all entitlements to her would be paid out in full, all ties to her would be severed, and that any and all records that related to her under any alias were to be removed (leaving no trace within the DEA), and held pending release to officers carrying the appropriate authorisation. (What no-one knew was that similar orders had also been signed off for Sarah, and were being held ready in case Graham ever tried anything against her.)

The only things that the DEA managed to find out was that there was a Special Projects group, nominally under the umbrella of the DIA, that apparently reported only to the DNI, and the POTUS himself, that the group had been around for well over a decade, and that the old nickname for this group was Alias Smith and Jones. The Administrator of Drug Enforcement wasn't comfortable with this development. Uncomfortable escalated to frightened though a few weeks later when the hammer came down because files had been retained in a few areas that related to the agent, how the hell had anyone found out about them?

As soon as it was official, the General called Chuck, and he went to get Carina's DIA credentials out of the safe and took them to her, putting them on the table beside her without a word as she was talking to Ellie over lunch. Carina caught something in Ellie's expression at the same time she saw something out of the corner of her eye and whipped around, but Chuck was already well away from her, then her elbow nudged the folder with her credentials in it.

When she opened the folder, she looked at him and asked him if it was done? Chuck nodded and told her that she was processed out of the DEA an hour ago, and now she was officially a DIA Special Agent, it would take a while to process the rest of her identity as that relied on other branches of the government, and she may be adding NSA Agent to that sometime in the future, but for now she was in the DIA, and she could start her new life.

It was still agreed that the best option for her was to spend a while in D.C. to get off everyone's radar, so Carina hopped on the C-37 that the General supplied and headed over there, she was going to use Sarah's apartment while she was there, as that would keep her further under the radar.

* * *

Now that things were sorted out for Carina, the team had some serious catching up to do for their CCE customers, so they were spending long hours at the shop. Around 20:00 one night, it was obvious that they weren't going to be done any time soon, so Chuck and Sarah did a food run. For some reason, Chuck had a hankering for Sizzling Shrimp, which had been a favourite of his when he was a teenager, so they headed down to the Bamboo Dragon, because that was where they got it from.

They placed their takeaway order and were talking and idly looking around the restaurant while they were waiting, when Chuck got a flash of information that was triggered by a tattoo that showed on the inside of one of the waitresses' arms. Sarah recognised the signs of a flash, and cuddled up to him to ask what it was? Chuck nodded in the direction of the waitress "That waitress, she's Mei-ling Cho, Chinese Intelligence, she's never set foot on US soil before." "Are you sure? "Pretty sure, yeah."

Sarah hit a button to make her phone ring and pulled it out of her pocket, calling Casey on speed dial as she did so. As Casey's Russian was pretty good, that was what she spoke, lowering her voice when she gave the name that Chuck got a flash on. From his time with Chuck's team, Casey knew that she was China's top spy, but he snorted when Sarah gave him an exasperated "Da!" when he said that.

She told him to get the guys to start looking things up, because they'd have to wait there until the food was ready, it'd be too suspicious if they left without it. When she hung up she looked upset as she switched back to English and told Chuck that Uncle Josef was getting impatient for the food, and wouldn't listen when she tried to tell him that they'd only just ordered it. He pulled her in for a hug and whispered in her ear "God, you're good at this!" He could hear the smile in her voice when she replied "I need to be to keep up with you!", turning her head quickly to kiss his mouth, which was right next to her ear.

As soon as the food was ready, they went back the van and settled down to wait for Casey. Chuck called the shop and told Jeff and Anna to go home, as they shouldn't be stuck there working while the rest of them were chasing up NSA/CIA matters. Casey went back to his place to report the sighting to the General and Graham, and then grabbed the file he'd put together of everything known about Mei-Ling Cho and headed to the Bamboo Dragon to join the stakeout with Chuck and Sarah.

After an hour and a half or so sitting in the van, going through the files to try and determine what Mei-Ling was doing here, Sarah suddenly started madly hunting through the files and turned to Chuck with an accusing look. "Over half these reports are from John Smith or Susan Jones, that's you and Ellie." "Yeah?" "You didn't think it was relevant to tell me that you put together a lot of the information we have on this woman?" "Not really, because nothing I know tells me why she's here now, and that's what we're looking now." That got him a look he'd rather not receive from Sarah, but what he'd said was the truth, to the best of his knowledge.

When the restaurant closed at 22:00, a stretch limo pulled up out front and an elderly Chinese man was wheeled out in a wheelchair and put into the limo before it pulled away. Casey identified the man as Ben Lo Pan, a local big shot who owned half of Chinatown (he obviously did his research after Sarah called him). Soon after that, Mei-Ling came out in bike leathers and jumped on a sports bike that was around the corner, taking off to follow the limo. They in turn followed Mei-Ling.

They didn't go far, as they were still in the Chinatown area when the limo pulled up in front of a building and Lo Pan was offloaded. Mei-Ling ducked around the corner to park her bike and she was pulling a couple of pistols out of the small compartment behind the seat on her bike when they pulled up, Casey made a typically Casey non-PC comment about "Glocks and a crotch rocket, my kinda gal", but when Chuck saw the pistols he got another information flash and saw that they were Chinese military issue QSW-06s.

The military issue weapons raised more questions about what Mei-Ling was doing here, because they didn't go with a covert mission to get intel, they went more with assassinations, and the obvious target was Ben Lo Pan, given that she was following him. As they watched her climb a drainpipe to the roof of the building, Sarah and Casey decided that they needed to go in and stop the assassination, if that was was it was, so they left Chuck in the van (because the civilian "Intersect" couldn't go into dangerous situations, something he got an apology and kiss from Sarah for, but not Casey, much to his relief) and went in.

Inside was a private Chinese club, and any chance to talk their way in quietly was gone when the doorman/guard saw Casey's pistol. It wasn't difficult for them to disarm the guard and take him out, but when they got inside and Sarah called "Gun!" when she saw Mei-Ling advancing on Lo Pan, all hell broke loose. Lo Pan's men were shooting at Sarah and Casey as much as they were Mei-Ling because they thought they were together, but some of Lo Pan's men got him out of there as soon as the shooting started.

When Chuck heard shooting, he ran out to the front of the building to see Lo Pan being loaded into the limo, but then he saw another, younger, Asian man being hauled out of the building and thrown into the trunk. As soon as he saw the younger man hauled out, Chuck started running, but they either saw him or they were desperate to get away from the gunfight, because they jumped in and took off before he could reach them. Just before he got there, Mei-Ling burst out the door and started firing after the limo, then turned her pistols on Chuck and demanded to know where they took him.

"Took who?" "My brother, where did they take him?" "Oh, I expect that he was the guy they threw in the trunk, sorry, I have no idea where they took him, I was running up here to try and stop them." At that moment, Sarah and Casey came of the main entrance behind him and called out "Federal agents, drop your weapons!" Which did little to diffuse the situation, it actually looked like it put her more on edge.

Deciding that someone had to diffuse the situation, Chuck spoke to her in Chinese. " _Cho_ _Mei-Ling, you're not going to help your brother by getting yourself killed. If you shoot any of us, one of them will kill you, I don't want that to happen, and I'm rather attached to them, so I don't want anything to happen to them, so please lower your weapons and we'll try to help you rescue your brother."_

She stared at him, not quite believing that the man in front of her could speak fluent Chinese, or that he was displaying absolutely no fear as he looked down the barrels of the two pistols she had pointed at his face. His argument was valid, though, she couldn't help Lee if she was dead, and she recognised the pair behind him, there was no way she could get both of them, so she lowered the pistols.

When she did so, he held out his hand, saying _"Please? It will diffuse the situation if you hand them over now, they will be returned to you later."_ She nodded and placed the two pistols in his hand. He bowed and said _"Thank you."_ Then he turned to the pair behind him and motioned for them to lower their weapons, too. They did so, but the look he was getting from Sarah was saying "We're going to talk about this later!" He heard Mei-Ling murmuring "She is not happy with you." behind him and he sighed "No, she isn't."

They loaded Mei-Ling's bike into the back of the van and headed back to Casey's. At Casey's, Mei-Ling watched the young man who was obviously in charge of this team, whether it was official or not. He spent about fifteen minutes digging up information on the computer while Mei-Ling told her story to them, he was obviously listening to her though as he asked for clarification of a few points as she was talking. She was also watching the woman, Agent Sarah Walker, who was one of the most formidable spies in the Western world, as well as being completely in love with this, Chuck.

They all turned to look at Chuck when he swore, standing up and walking away from the computer without a word. That intrigued them so they went to see what had upset him, up on the screens there was everything about Lee's disappearance and the Triad involvement, including the fact that they wanted to trade him for a Triad captain in custody, and that the PRC would not consider the trade, but Mei-Ling couldn't see what got this, Chuck, upset until Sarah Walker pointed to one screen and said "This".

It was the image of a document that formally stated that she had disobeyed her orders and that she was disavowed by the People's Republic of China (she also filed away the fact that obviously both of them could read Chinese well enough to understand the document, something that hadn't been known before about Agent Walker. This was a very strange team to have two people of this calibre, no, three, Major John Casey was extremely skilled as well, buried in a city within their own borders).

She looked to Sarah Walker as if to say "This was expected, why is he upset?", but the woman shook her head, saying "Chuck doesn't think like a spy, his moral compass always points to "right", and to him, burning you because you're trying to save your brother is most definitely NOT right." Mei-Ling looked at the young man, musing "He is a very strange man, he is most skilled and as brave as anyone I've ever met, but he is upset about standard protocols? I do not understand him."

At that point, Chuck came back with a drink in his hand, from what they'd seen, the second since he walked away and almost two thirds gone already. When he was at the computer he started speaking. "We have two issues to handle, the first is to rescue your brother, and the second is to safely return him. From that (pointing at the document), you can't return him as you'd probably both be shot. The logical approach would be for our State department people to formally hand him over and say that he was rescued by our government. The problem with that, of course, is that they'll want some baksheesh before they'll do that, and the obvious thing that they'll ask for is what you know."

"I will not betray my country, if I did that I could never go back!" "Sorry to say this, but from that (pointing to the document again) you can't go back anyway, and this may be the only way to get your brother safely back. I'm sure you know many things that you can tell our people that will not harm your country?" Mei-Ling nodded at that. "If you do that, I am sure that we can pull strings to get you put in witness protection so that you can have a comfortable life afterwards." Mei-Ling looked at the others, and they nodded, assuring her that he could do this. Mei-Ling looked at Chuck and nodded. "Very well, I will do this." He smiled "Great, now let's work out how to get him out of there."

They agreed that the only logical place for Lee to be was in Lo Pan's mansion, but the looks that Sarah and Casey were sending Chuck's way said that they were going to make him stick to the innocent civilian role and not be part of the team going in. On the basis of the information they discovered about the systems there, it should be relevantly simple, Sarah, Casey and Mei-Ling would attach remote access devices to the security system wiring so that Chuck could manipulate the security cameras, alarm systems and locks, they'd grab Lee and get out before anyone knew that they were there.

Chuck drove the van down the street slowly so that Sarah, Casey and Mei-Ling could jump out safely without being noticed, and then parked out of range of the security cameras. The first stages went off perfectly, they hooked him into the system and he took charge of it, leading them to the guards so that they could take them out, then suddenly all the camera feeds except for the ones that Sarah and Casey were wearing cut out. Sarah and Casey's cameras suddenly started moving violently and then cut off as well, and he could easily recognise the image of the sole of a boot rapidly approaching the cameras before they cut out.

Inside the mansion, Sarah and Casey were looking at each other, hoping that Chuck wouldn't do anything stupid to try and save them while Lo Pan gloated that the Chinese government had just told them that they could do what they wanted with Lee, so he was no longer any use to them, and a disavowed Chinese Agent was of no value either, but now he had two American spies that he could use to make a deal with, that pleased him greatly.

He immediately went into the back of the van to get some weapons, but they'd cleaned them out, obviously to try and stop him from attempting anything heroic. Chuck went back to the driver's seat and was trying to work out what to do when he saw Sarah, Casey, Mei-Ling and Lee being led out of the building and forced into a Bamboo Dragon van. He knew that that they wanted him to leave, but he was pretty sure that they'd know that there was no way he'd do that when they were in danger, now he just had to keep thirty yards behind the Bamboo Dragon van and see where they were taking them.

It turned out to be simpler than he thought, because they took them straight to the Bamboo Dragon. The left the van outside the front door of the restaurant when they took them inside, but Chuck knew where the kitchen entrance was, because he'd seen the cooks coming out when he was twelve or thirteen, so he quietly went around there. Luckily they still had the window in the door to let light in, so he saw Sarah and the others being pushed into the cool room in the back of the kitchen.

Unfortunately, most of the guards stayed in the kitchen area after they locked up his people, so he had to think of a way to get them out of there. He remembered that there always used to be black market fireworks peddlers hanging around Chinatown, and was pretty sure he could make a distraction that way, but he made sure he could pick the lock on the kitchen door quickly enough for this to work before he went looking for one. Once he'd confirmed that he could, he went hunting.

He didn't have to go far to find someone who hadn't been doing too good a job of selling their fireworks, so he had most of the bag of fireworks left. Now armed (of a sorts) Chuck went back to the Bamboo Dragon and as soon as the way was clear, he opened all the doors of the Bamboo Dragon van, lit a couple of the fuses and deposited the bag in the van before hoofing it around the kitchen entrance.

As soon as the fireworks in the van went off, all the guards ran straight out the front of the restaurant to see what the commotion was and Chuck let himself, making a beeline to the cool room to let them out. They didn't manage to get out of the kitchen before someone worked out that it WAS a diversion and sent the guards back in, though, so they then had eight or nine guards to take on.

Chuck pushed Lee down out of harm's way, but he grabbed a handful of kitchen knives etc and was using them to make Lo Pan's guards keep their heads down to level the playing field a little. When he saw Lo Pan burning rubber in his wheelchair to get out of there, a heavy cleaver thrown into the crack behind the door from across the kitchen meant that there was no way the door was going to open until it was removed. Mei-Ling saw the cleaver bite into the gap, and the look she turned on him was quite calculating.

They secured Lo Pan and all his guards, and called for pick up and clean up crews. Chuck and Sarah took Mei-Ling and Lee back to Casey's while Casey waited for the crews to arrive, Casey had needed to come back here to pick up his beloved Crown Vic anyway, so he had his ride home. They called it in to the General, who made arrangements for Lee to be delivered to State to return him to the Chinese Consulate (if it had been just him he probably would have gone with Mei-Ling, but he had a young family back in China).

After Mei-Ling and Lee had made their goodbyes, Sarah took Lee to the rendezvous with State, while Chuck waited with Mei-Ling. The conversation that they had was most interesting.

"Thank you, Chuck, without you I would have not managed to save my brother, I am in your debt."

"Don't worry about it, I'm just glad Lee is safe."

"You are a very strange man Chuck, you put yourself and your team at risk for a cause that has nothing to do with you, and then you go out of your way to make arrangements for a pleasant life for an enemy agent that you have no reason to trust, and yet I am certain that you have no agenda to what you are doing." "Please understand, when I say that I am in your debt, I am making a commitment, if there is ever anything that you need of me, call and I will deliver."

"Thank you Mei-Ling, but it isn't necessary."

"Do your partners know that you are Agent Smith, or Agent Carmichael?"

"What?…..I'm afraid that I don't know what you're talking about Mei-Ling."

She gave him a look which told him that there was no point in trying to deny it. "Yes, but no-one outside of our group does, and I would appreciate it if it stayed that way."

"Chuck, you risked yourself to save my family, I would not betray you."

"As a matter of interest, how did you know?"

"I didn't at first, but the more I saw you do, the more I recognised the patterns of what you do, many people back home, myself included, study you and admire your work, even though you have caused the People's Republic considerable difficulty with the many times you have thwarted their plans over the years. I must admit, your youth is a surprise, has it always been you, or did you take over from someone else?"

"No, it was always me, I started fairly young….Mei-Ling, would you be interested in working with my team?"

"That would be impossible, they would never allow a defector like me work with someone as important as you are."

"I'm pretty sure I can make it happen, if you were interested in joining the team?"

"I still do not believe that it would be possible, but if it were, it would be my honour to be a part of your team."

"Great, now we just have to change the arrangements, hold on." He brought up the video like with the General again.

"General, we have a change of plans, Mei-Ling needs to go to you to give all her depositions, because once she's done, we're going to add her to the team."

"What? Chuck, that's not possible, we can't have a Chinese Agent in our team!"

"Well as we've already informed you, she isn't a Chinese Agent any more, they've burned her for trying to rescue her brother and she's changed sides because of that. As with our other additions, Ms Cho has a wealth of skills that would enhance our capabilities, so it makes much more sense for us to use them for our benefit, rather than put her in some dead end existence in Bumfuck Idaho."

"Chuck, I really don't think we can manage this one."

"General, I will be preparing the case for Ms Cho's new identity and her addition to our team, will I be presenting the case via yourself, or will I be presenting it directly?"

Her eyes flashed and he could almost see the steam coming out of her ears. "Don't take that tone with me young man! I'm still your superior officer!"

"I'm sorry Aunt D, but my question remains, who will be presenting it?"

I'll present it, but it'll need to be one hell of a case to get through!"

"Thanks Aunt D, I'll get the case to you tonight."

"I'll send Agent Miller to collect Ms Cho in the morning, you will be notified of the ETA, so you can bring her to the airport and hand her over to Agent Miller." "Beckman out" and she cut the link.

Mei-Ling stared at him "If anyone talked to their superior like that in China they would be shot!"

Chuck shrugged "She's not happy with me at the moment, but she'll get over it, because she knows I'm right, she's just having trouble admitting it."

At that point, they saw the headlights of Casey's car coming up the drive, so Chuck quickly explained to Mei-Ling how this would go, she'd be staying here for the night, and unfortunately she'd have to be locked inside a secure room. In the morning, they'd take her to the airport to turn her over to Agent Miller, who was part of their team and a friend. When they got back to D.C. she'd make her depositions of whatever information she was giving up for State and the Military, then she would be getting a new identity and added to the team. He stopped that point "How do you feel about Mei-Ling Chiang?"

She looked at him again "That would be fine." She tended to agree with the General, there was no way that this could work, but she did appreciate his efforts.

When Casey came in, Chuck filled him in on the new plans, they said their good nights and he walked up to his house. When he got home, Ellie was up, so he asked her if she could spare some sleepwear and other clothes for Mei-Ling (as she was closest to her in height and build), and trotted what she gave him down to Casey's.

When he got back he went into the workroom and started preparing the case that they'd need to support giving her a new identity, citizenship, and adding her to a government team. It took him four hours, but he thought what he put together was pretty much bullet proof. After he'd sent it off, he went to their room and crawled into bed with Sarah (who'd come in while he was working on preparing the case), because their agreement was that he WOULD come to bed if she was there when he was finished working, no more napping on the couch in the workroom.

In the morning, they confirmed when Carina's plane was supposed to arrive, got ready and headed to Casey's. While Casey and Mei-Ling were getting ready, Chuck checked to confirm that Lee was already on his way back to China (hopefully to his family) and left it up on screen for Mei-Ling. When Mei-Ling came out, Chuck pointed to the screen, which brought a smile to her face, and she thanked them again for helping save Lee.

They were waiting at the airport when the C-37 landed, and the minute the door opened, Carina came bounding out, greeting Sarah and Chuck, and even Casey with hugs. When she turned to Mei-Ling and greeted her in very good Chinese, Mei-ling's eyes widened, so far, with the exception of Major Casey, these people ALL spoke good Chinese, who were they?

Once the greetings were done, they went through the formal process of signing Mei-Ling over to Carina and they boarded the plane, the others waiting until the plane was taxiing out onto the runway before turning to go.

The had a very full day in the shop, especially since their catch up session the night before had been interrupted, so everyone was head down arse up most of the day. There was a distraction later in the afternoon when a video call came in from the General and she glowered at Chuck when she told him that his case had been accepted and they would begin processing everything for Ms Chiang while she was giving her depositions.

She then told him that the transfers for the building to Piranha Security and Technology were being processed, so he needed to arrange for $600 thousand to be transferred to the account he'd been given sometime over the next day or so. The Global Financial Crisis had pushed all the values down, so they'd have at least a few million more than expected to put towards the remodelling efforts now. She also noted that Roan had told her that he wanted to talk to him about some ideas he had on that front.

Chuck was intrigued. "I'll call him when I have a chance, thanks Aunt D, and I'm sorry about last night, but I'm confident that Mei-Ling will be as good for the team as Jeff and Anna were."

She looked at him resignedly. "I should know by now that you'll never stop tilting at windmills Chuck, but it's just so damn frustrating that you always prove to be right, no matter how ridiculous your position seems to be."

Sarah looked thoughtful when she said that, but Chuck just grinned and said "Sorry".

A little after that, Sarah ducked out for a while, and came back with a smile on her face, Chuck wasn't sure what she was up to, but he knew she was up to something.

He found what that something was when he got home that night, as there were half a dozen large Don Quixote prints up around the house, in their bedroom, the workroom, and the gym. He just turned and looked at her but she said "What? When the General made the tilting at windmills crack it hit me that there's never going to be anyone that you're more like that Don Quixote, so it seemed fitting." he had to laugh at that as he pulled her in for a kiss.


	13. Nova And The Black Hole

**Usual disclaimer for the Land of litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed.**

* * *

Sarah stretched when she woke, and noted with surprise that Chuck was still asleep next to her. Looking at him, the night before flashed through her head, and she blushed, the laughing kiss that was brought on by the Don Quixote prints had quickly progressed to something more, and neither of them had wanted to stop.

They'd spent the last six months sleeping in each other's arms most nights, kissing, hugging, holding hands, but they hadn't felt the need to go further, yes, they had to be careful in front of others outside, but they were comfortable with each other, and that was enough (especially if the girls stayed over, because they always joined them for at least part of the night to cuddle with Daddy, and her). Last night that had changed, and it was so much more than she'd ever felt before, yes, he had incredible skills (she wouldn't be rubbing Ellie's nose in it, but she could easily understand what all those girls had kept going on about), but it was more than that, it was the way he touched her deep inside whenever they kissed or held each other, or even just held hands, that was what made it so incredible.

Just then she heard his voice "You know it's kinda creepy to stare at someone when they're asleep." His eyes were still shut, but she could see his lips trying not to curl into a smile. "You're not asleep." "But I was, and you've been doing it for a while." "I can neither confirm, nor deny that sir." He opened his eyes and grinned at that, reaching out to pull her in for a soft kiss before she added "Besides, I rarely get the chance, you're usually awake and up before I am." with a grin.

They showered, got dressed, and headed down for breakfast to find Ellie in the kitchen. She greeted them and went back to making breakfast, then looked back at them, her eyes widening as she said "I don't want to hear about it, I'm happy for you, but I don't want to hear about it!" Chuck smiled and said "OK", but Sarah just blushed.

As they were eating, Ellie asked if someone could explain the Don Quixote prints that had suddenly appeared around the house? Sarah grinned, telling her about Aunt D's tilting at windmills crack the day before, and that she'd decided that it was the perfect motif for Chuck, Ellie grinned, agreeing with a laugh that it did sum him up perfectly.

When they got to the shop, they got straight to work, as they still had a lot of catching up to do. When Anna arrived, she asked Chuck whether he'd transferred the money for the building, and Chuck said he'd done it that morning, he stopped to ask himself whether he should tell them about the last minute change to transfer the building to Mancha Holdings, an umbrella company that he'd created when he called Aunt D, but decided that it could wait, as it didn't make any substantial changes to what they were doing, he was just adding another layer to separate the building ownership from them. Anna's question reminded Sarah that she had no idea of what they were talking about, so she asked Chuck "What's this about a building you've just bought? This isn't something I've heard about before?"

Chuck looked embarrassed when he realised that he'd never told her anything about this, as it had all started years before she'd arrived, so he asked her to come for a walk. As they walked, he told her about the Burbank Buy More lawsuit and the out of court settlement that led to them owning Casa Bartek and Charlemagne Computing Etc free and clear, with a bit left over, and how he'd asked about acquiring an abandoned building to remodel to suit them.

By the time he'd finished talking, they'd stopped across the road from the building, and he nodded across the road, saying "That's our building." Sarah looked at it and said "You're kidding!" but he shook his head and said "Nope!" with a grin. The building itself was fairly large, 70M x 30M with three storeys, but the ground floor was double height, so it was more like four, it also had two more hidden levels underground, with the first level double height like the ground floor (the official records didn't show anything about these or a number of other very interesting features).

Chuck had discovered the "special" aspects of the building when he went looking after they first set up the CCE shop by hacking into the systems of the ones who'd commissioned the building, along with the organisations that had built the various parts of it, and he'd removed any trace of them from the records wherever he found them. Something had prompted him to do that years before he thought he had any hope of getting the building, and most of the key players had died together in a shoot out, so very few people would know anything about them. It had been built about seven or eight years ago, but was never occupied, as all the people behind it had been killed before it was fitted out. Since then, the building had been sitting there, sealed up, while everyone, including the government, fought over the estate, and now it was their's.

They walked around the block so Sarah could get a good look at the building, and then they walked back to the shop. When they got back, Chuck showed Sarah the features of the building that very few people knew about, like the extra levels and the security features that made it a fortress (this was why it had been tied up in criminal investigations, it had been intended to be a hub for criminal activity in Los Angeles, and as such it was designed to be able to hold off a military assault for long enough to give those operating within it a chance to destroy any evidence and get away via tunnels to other locations, or hide out in the more secure areas underground), along with some of the concepts he'd come up with for the remodelling. Sarah could see that they were in for an interesting future with this.

* * *

All that was exciting, but they still had to deal with their CCE and NSA/CIA workloads (as well as the DCS work under the covers), so they had to concentrate on that. They'd been doing that for a couple of months and were starting to get on top of it when they got a call from Graham one morning (they didn't miss the fact that he was leaving the General completely out of the loop on this one). Graham's call was to inform them that there was a high value CIA asset who'd gone rogue and escaped from a facility just outside of L.A. after killing his handlers, and he was adamant that recovering this asset and returning him to the CIA without damage was their top priority.

Given that none of them trusted Graham, at all, Chuck immediately hacked into the CIA systems to get the full story on this Laszlo Mahnovski. What he found left a bad taste in his mouth, as what had happened to him could very well have happened to Chuck under slightly different circumstances. Laszlo was a genius, at Chuck's level if not smarter, but when he was eleven the CIA had discovered him in an arcade parlour and manipulated his parents into signing control of him over to the CIA's people, using the argument that they could give him what he needed to make the most of himself.

Laszlo earned his degrees at fourteen, and his doctorate at seventeen, but he hadn't really seen the outside world since then. The CIA was using him for the same thing they had Chuck's father, to create whatever technology they wanted, and they'd kept him locked up in an underground bunker without any access to the outside world while he did that. He never saw anyone other than his handlers, and from the reports, this had driven him more than a little crazy. They had get to him before anyone else did and help him.

Even though their plan was the exact opposite of what everyone else was doing (they were going to get him away from the CIA and make sure they never found him), they had the same problem as Graham's minions, they had to find Laszlo first, and he was doing a very good job of avoiding that. While they were faced by the same challenge as Graham's minions, though, they had a very big advantage over them, because Chuck, Anna and Jeff didn't think like spies, they thought like nerds. It only took a couple of hours for Chuck to click as to where Laszlo would be, and then the main question was how to bring him in without creating a scene.

Chuck kept in contact with Sarah and Casey as he circulated through the arcade parlours on the Santa Monica Pier, because they couldn't come in, either of them would have given the game away as Casey screamed military or G-Man, and Sarah was far too beautiful to be in Nerdland. They were sure he'd be here, because this was the last place Laszlo was before his life finished because the CIA got their hands on him when he was eleven, so Chuck was certain that he was here somewhere, he just had to find him and get him away before the CIA realised it.

Chuck had already made his pitches about Laszlo to Aunt D and had his plan approved, when Chuck brought him in (when, not if), he'd be transferred to a nice facility back East and be given whatever therapy and help he needed to get him over what had been done to him for the past sixteen years since the CIA grabbed him. Then, when he felt up to it, he'd be offered a choice either to work with an older version of himself (Stefan Bartek, AKA Chuck's Dad) on projects where he had the option to refuse if it was something he disagreed with, or go into Witness Protection, and though the downsides to Witsec would be pointed out to him, the choice would be his.

It only took Chuck fifteen minutes to sight Laszlo, manoeuvre him into a corner where they wouldn't be seen and stick a modified tranq dart into him (one that mainly took away his control of his motor functions). Chuck changed Laszlo's appearance a little and then walked him out like he'd walked Ellie out the club that night. As soon as they got to the road, the van pulled up, they were hauled in by Casey and the van was on its way inside twenty seconds.

When they got back to Casey's, they injected Laszlo with the antidote for what Chuck had given him earlier, and when he'd come out of it, they sat down to explain the situation to him. Well, it was mainly Chuck who did that because there was no way that Laszlo was going to trust Casey or Sarah because he'd recognised them as agents.

As soon as Laszlo had settled down enough to act rationally, Chuck cut off the zip tie holding his hands together to make him more comfortable as they talked, and by the time they had to take him to the airport about an hour and a half later to put him on the plane that Aunt D sent, Laszlo was in a much better frame of mind, he was actually hopeful for the first time since he was twelve.

When they met the plane, Sarah introduced Laszlo to Carina and Mei-Ling, breaking the ice by putting her arm around Carina and telling him "Watch out for this one Laszlo, I love Carina like a sister but she's a man eater, a cute guy like you may not be safe around her, but I'm sure that Mei-Ling will do her best to protect you from her." That got a few laughs, but Sarah gave Laszlo a look to tell him that she wasn't entirely joking, which made him sweat a little.

As getting Laszlo out of there before the CIA or anyone else who wanted to use him found him was an imperative, they made their goodbyes quickly so they could leave. Carina, as usual, pushed the boundaries with the hug and kiss she gave Chuck, but it was Mei-Ling who surprised him with a warm (if hesitant) hug before she got back on the plane. They called when they were in D.C. and Laszlo was settled into the facility under his new name, Leslie Markus.

While Laszlo (Leslie) was in the facility, he and Chuck kept in contact and talked regularly, no-one expected a quick fix for sixteen years of abuse by the CIA, but they were confident that Laszlo's star would shine brightly, now that he had his life back.

Back in L.A. they kept going through the motions of searching for Laszlo, and asking Graham what they should tell the General when she asked what was taking up their time until he told them to discontinue the search, as it looked like Laszlo had left L.A. so there was no point wasting any more time looking for him.

* * *

The cases that they got for the next few months were generally run of the mill, so they managed to catch up with the backlog of CCE, NSA/CIA and DCS work and they were able to spend more time pushing the business in the direction that they wanted, the high end security and forensics work. Uncle Roan had also come over and talked over his ideas on the remodelling, and as they liked what they heard from him, they'd given him pretty much a free hand for the residential levels of Quixote House, which were the top two (well, three with his plans) floors.

Chuck had filled the others in on the ownership change to Mancha Holdings (which explained the building's name) and they were fine with it, though Sarah looked a bit dubious to see Sarah Carmichael as one of the three directors of Mancha holdings, as did Casey when he saw that the four directors of Piranha Security and Technology were now Charles Carmichael, Sarah Carmichael, Eleanor Charlemagne and John Casey.

The ground floor was dedicated to secure parking and office space, but they split most of the floor into two levels. The first third of the secure parking area was left as full height, but the rest of that side and all the other side was two levels. The initial plan was that only the ground level was going to be fitted out for the Piranha offices (that would be far more than they'd need for some time), while nothing but the structural work and core plumbing and utilities distribution infrastructure would be completed on the first level areas, that would leave them ready to be fitted out as required when there was a need for them.

On the underground levels, they'd be doing something similar, five sixths of the first level would be split into two, and one sixth would be left as full height for the training area. Once again, most of the fit out would be on the second level (B2), and the rest would be largely structural and plumbing and utilities infrastructure to cater for future needs.

With Roan's plans to add a Penthouse that took up half of the roof, they were turning a nominally three level building into eight levels, which would include eight large three to four bedroom apartments on levels three and four, plus the six bedroom Penthouse on the roof, which opened onto the roof garden and full sized pool. What was originally built as a crime fortress was being turned into a secure palace.

* * *

Their quiet period ended when they were tasked with following up reports of a suspicious shipment coming to L.A. with known arms traffickers, the Demetrios family. The reason that this was made a priority was that the reports made it sound like this shipment was a serious bomb or Weapon of Mass Destruction, and the powers that be were concerned about what it was intended to be used on.

Chuck (with Jeff and Anna's unofficial assistance) hacked into the Demetrios family's systems, but they seemed to be old school because they obviously didn't do much of their "real" business via the computers. That added a few complications, so Casey, Sarah and Chuck had to get into the club that Stavros Demetrios (the son) had just opened, as well as his apartment and his cars, to plant bugs to try and catch word of what they were doing. Spending hours upon hours having to listen to Stavros boast about himself and try to seduce women rather badly was rather wearing, especially as they weren't getting anything of value from this, but they finally got a payoff when he took a call from his father at the club.

From what they were hearing from Stavros's end, the call was to confirm he was ready to take delivery of the shipment, because his response was "Yes Papa, Dock 34B warehouse at 1:30 tomorrow, I will be there, I will not let you down Papa!" While he said nothing to confirm which shipment he was talking about, it sounded too important to be anything but the one they were looking for.

They arranged for a support team and a bomb squad, and these teams were set up in a parking station a street away a few hours ahead of time so that they wouldn't tip anyone off. Surveillance of the dock gates showed both Yari and Stavros Demetrios arriving with a truck about ten minutes before 13:30. At 13:30 they moved in, breaching the gates and charging into the warehouse, but the reception that they found in the main warehouse outnumbered their team and were heavily armed.

Immediately a battle broke out between their team and Stavros's people, and Chuck had little choice but to obey the "stay in the car" orders that he got from Sarah and Casey because with the CIA teams there he couldn't be seen to be handling a weapon, let alone knowing how to use one. In the middle of the fire fight though, Stavros broke away and ran, and Chuck took off after him. When Sarah saw Chuck chasing Stavros, she went after him, because she knew that he didn't have a weapon, and she didn't want to think what may happen if he had a confrontation with Stavros when he was unarmed.

Chuck chased Stavros into another warehouse about half a mile away from the one where the battle was going on, only to find that he'd ducked off to one side just inside the door and stopped, drawing a pistol. Stavros was starting to bring the pistol up to aim it at Chuck when Sarah got there, and the second she saw the scene in front of her, she put a bullet between Stavros's eyes before he had a chance to pull the trigger.

When they'd gotten over that moment, they saw what Stavros had come here for, as there was a very large packing crate in the middle of the otherwise empty warehouse. They quickly ran through their options before deciding that they needed to see what was in the crate, because if that was all bomb, the blast from that would level a few city blocks at least. It only took Chuck a couple of minutes to open the front of the crate with a pry bar, but what they saw didn't make them feel any better.

What was in the crate was eight to ten feet long and five or six feet across, and it had a timer counting down that was already reading under thirty seconds. There was no point trying to run, there was no way they could outrun the blast that something like this would create, and even if they could, everyone else in their team and countless others would die, so their only option was to try to disarm it.

Sarah pried the timer off so that they could get to the wiring behind it, but the Intersect wasn't giving Chuck anything, and neither of them could see anything they recognised that would help them disarm this thing. When the timer got down to five seconds they gave up and threw themselves into each other's arms, determined to go out kissing the one they loved.

About thirty or forty seconds later, they started realising that the time that the bomb was supposed to go off was long past, and they weren't dead, so they backed off the kiss. When they'd gotten to the point of gently kissing each other's lips, they stopped and turned to look at the timer, to see it flashing 00:00. Sarah rested her forehead on Chuck's chest as she tried to regain her composure, then stretched up on tip toe to lightly kiss Chuck again before she pulled out her phone to call Casey to get the bomb squad sent to their location. Casey asked her if she knew where Chuck was, and she said "He's here with me".

Sarah stayed, leaning against Chuck's chest wrapped in his arms until they heard footsteps running for the door and she stepped away, drawing her pistol and holding it ready, but she holstered it when the first person she saw was Casey. The bomb squad looked at the timer and mechanisms behind it, but they couldn't do any more than Sarah and Chuck had, so they sent for additional equipment and Chuck, Sarah and Casey left.

* * *

Sarah and Casey were called back to the site a few hours later when the bomb squad thought that they were close to getting it When they got there, the leader of the bomb squad told them that it appeared to be a life support container, or something like that. About fifteen minutes later they managed to crack the code and the container opened to show a human figure, Bryce Larkin. The medic checked him over and said that his vital signs looked good, but good was a relative term for Sarah and Casey, as they both wanted this bastard dead. So they just looked at Larkin, trying to work out what the hell was going on.

Larkin was transferred to the nearest NSA facility in an ambulance, and two hours later he was conscious and talking, but all he'd do was ask for Chuck. Knowing that this could be an even worse shock for him than it was for her, Sarah went to get Chuck, calling him from the car to tell him that he needed to go somewhere with her. When he got in she took off, explaining that what they found wasn't a bomb, it was a container, and it had a man inside. Chuck looked at her "Was it anyone we know?" Sarah was quiet for a minute as she drove, and then she said "Yes, Bryce Larkin." "What, how, we were told he was dead!" "We don't know, he won't talk to any of us, he'll only talk to you."

When they got to the NSA facility, Casey came down to get them and walk them through the security to where Larkin was being held. As they went, Sarah asked him if Larkin had said anything else, but he just shook his head, saying that he kept asking for Chuck. When they got there, Sarah explained to Chuck that Bryce was refusing to talk to anyone but him, so if they were to have any hope of getting anything out of him, it was all up to him. He nodded and went to head in, but Casey reminded him to remove anything that could be used as a weapon before he went in, so he did that and then entered. When he walked in the room, Larkin started accusing him of being a fake, and eventually demanding that he say something in Klingon.

When Chuck complied with that demand, Larkin laughed, telling him his Klingon was rusty. Every answer that he gave was a question, or evasion, and when Chuck asked for details of how he could be alive, Bryce nodded him closer, but when Chuck leant in, he popped the (obviously released) restraint on the side away from the window and grabbed the injector gun that someone had stashed there, putting it to Chuck's neck and making Chuck undo the strap on the other side. Chuck may have been able to take him, but he would have had to show that he wasn't what he was meant to be, so he did as he was told.

Sarah and Casey ran into the room, but they couldn't shoot Larkin while he was holding the injector to Chuck's neck in case he injured Chuck, or worse. Larkin forced them to keep their distance as he manoeuvred Chuck into the elevator, threatening to kill Chuck if they didn't give him the access code for the elevator when they were inside. They just looked at him, but when Larkin started pulling the trigger on the injector, Sarah gave in and told him. As the elevator doors closed, the last thing Chuck could see was Sarah's terrified eyes. On the way down, Larkin kept up the same game of answering every question with a question. Then, just as they were reaching the bottom, he suddenly gave Chuck a shot in his arm, apologising to him as Chuck faded away. Chuck came to with Sarah hanging over him in a total panic, and Larkin was gone.

* * *

For the next few days, things were quiet, they were taken off the hunt because Graham had stopped just short of accusing them of engineering Larkin's escape, so they were sent back to do their other work. Sarah decided that she had to spend the night at her apartment so that they could keep telling Graham that she was still working up to moving in with Chuck, so she went back there. She was dead tired from working flat out all day, and she was pretty sure that that was the reason that she didn't immediately pick up the signs as soon as she walked in the door.

When the door was pushed closed behind her, Sarah jumped away from there, drawing her pistol as she turned to see Larkin smirking at her, as usual certain that he was in total control of the situation. She looked at him and asked "What are you doing here Bryce, and why shouldn't I just shoot you?" His smirk widened as he said "Because I'm not a rogue spy, because the Intersect was a mission, because, Sarah, you're still in love with me." With that he moved towards her, reaching out to pull her face to him, but got a rude shock when he was suddenly pistol whipped to the floor, and when he was laying there, dazed, another hit laid him out cold. Sarah quickly grabbed some cable ties from the drawer to secure him, and then called Casey.

Casey was halfway home when he got the call from Sarah to say that she had Larkin in her apartment, so he did a quick U-Turn to head back at a rather more serious pace. When he got to Sarah's apartment building, he bypassed the alarms on the fire exit and ran up the fire stairs to Sarah's floor. Sarah saw him coming and let him in as soon as he got there. She told him how Larkin had been there when she came in and she'd knocked him out, but Larkin started to come to while they were talking. Sarah stepped towards him, hefting her pistol again, but she reluctantly conceded that he'd be no use to them with concussion, so she grabbed a tranq dart and stuck him with that instead.

Casey carried Larkin down the fire stairs and threw him in the back of his Crown Vic, then they removed the alarm bypasses and Sarah followed Casey back to his place. She left her Porsche parked outside his house and walked to Chuck's in case Larkin didn't know where Chuck lived.

When she came back in with Chuck, Larkin was still out in the chair where Casey had dumped him, so they left him that way and got out of earshot to quietly talk about what they were going to do with him. Sarah and Casey maintained that shooting him was the best option, but Chuck insisted that they had to at least try to get the story out of him.

When Larkin came around, they told him to talk, but he was still playing his games, saying that he couldn't talk to them, so Sarah turned to Casey, saying "He's all your's Casey" before reaching out to take Chuck's hand and head for the door. Larkin's eyes didn't turn away from their joined hands as he blurted out "Sand Wall", Chuck stopped as he flashed, and then called Casey over to quietly fill the two of them in on what he'd seen about Project Sand Wall.

Casey grunted his disappointment and went back to pull Larkin to his feet none too gently to remove his restraints. Once he'd freed him, Casey took him back to the "office" to initiate a link to Director Graham, then left him there for a debriefing and came back to the living room. They talked about what this could mean and who was involved, Casey snorted and said "Graham, obviously!", but while Sarah and Chuck agreed, they still didn't have the answers they needed.

About half an hour later, Larkin came back, saying that he had his next assignment "I'm going after Fulcrum, on my own, off the radar", he was looking at Sarah as he said this with the obvious expectation that there was no way that she could resist joining him on an assignment like this. Larkin went on to say "Bryce Larkin is gone, and he'll stay gone this time." He shook hands with Casey and Chuck, saying goodbye, then turned to Sarah and said "Sarah, we'll always have Omaha." and turned and walked out the door.

When he was gone, Chuck asked Sarah what he'd meant by the Omaha comment? Sarah snorted, "It was one of our old codes to contact each other, he's expecting me to go with him." she grabbed his hand and pulled him in for a kiss before saying, "I'd love to see his face when I don't turn up." with a grin. Casey didn't bother making his usual comment about the kiss, they needed it after that bastard came back from the dead to screw with them again.

* * *

The morning after Larkin left on his dream assignment, Team Bartek received text messages calling them into a briefing on short notice. Casey and Chuck were waiting for the link to D.C. to start while Sarah was rinsing their coffee mugs out in the kitchen. At that moment the link came up and General Beckman asked "Where is Agent Walker?" and Casey had just started to explain when Sarah walked up and apologised.

Graham was looking smug as Casey started to give his response, but when Sarah turned up, he was shocked and none too happy to see her there, obviously he'd expected her to leave with Larkin and didn't like his plans being thwarted.

The General and Graham filled them on on the mission, to attend a charity fundraiser event being hosted by a well connected billionaire who was publicised as a great humanitarian, but had his fingers in a lot of undertakings that were anything but, Lon Kirk. There was chatter going around about him being involved in something big that was about to go down, and their job was to find out what that was.

Chuck didn't know quite what Casey was up to when he asked whether Chuck and Sarah would be going as a couple? Neither did the General apparently as she looked at him and responded with "Unless they have a problem?", but Sarah jumped in to say "No problem", with Chuck agreeing.

Graham leant forward at that point to say "Agent Walker, ensure that you make it quite clear that you're there as a companion, not a partner to Mr Bartek, there can to be no impediments to you doing whatever you need to get the intel we're after out of Lon Kirk." There was a brief delay as she just looked at him, but the General cut in to say.

"Director Graham, this team cannot do that, over the past year they've become quite well recognised in these circles as Charles and Sarah Carmichael, a successful professional married couple. We've established this cover at your suggestion because that was standard CIA practice. If Agent Walker were to attempt to seduce another man it would destroy both their reputations and make it impossible for them to operate in this capacity for some time, if ever."

Graham waved that off. "Walker can change her appearance and go under another name"

"That is no better a solution Director Graham, if Mr Carmichael attended a function with a "companion" other than his wife, it would be just as noticeable and damaging to the Carmichaels' reputation as it would be if Mrs Carmichael was the guilty party, and besides which, even with changes to hair etc, people are bound to see the the similarities in her form and beauty to Mrs Carmichael's, which would only cause more questions to be asked."

She looked at him. "The only acceptable solution here, if you're determined to send someone in to seduce Lon Kirk Director Graham, is to send another CIA team in, as we cannot afford to have the Intersect team compromised in this way, they are too important to throw away on a mission of this nature."

Graham looked at her as though he was about to physically attack her. "Very well, I will take another team off their assignment and send them to Los Angeles for this mission!" and with that, he stormed out of her office. She looked at them and nodded slightly to the door before she cut the link.

* * *

Five minutes later, the screen in the living room at Casa Bartek lit up with her image. "Can someone explain to me what that was about?" Casey looked at Sarah, but she was obviously still too worked up by what Graham had tried to do to her, so he spoke up.

"Larkin was trying to get Sarah to go with him last night, and that was obviously something that Graham was part of, because you couldn't see it, but he was surprised and angry when Sarah appeared for the briefing. Obviously this was Graham's attempt to punish her for not doing what he expected her to, by sending her in for another mission where the mark was so important that she'd have no recourse other than to give in and have sex with him when he demanded it."

The General's shoulders slumped when she heard that. "I'm so sorry Sarah, I had no idea that he was going to try that. Unfortunately, given that Graham isn't likely to give up until he gets what he wants, I think it may be time to enact this." She reached into her drawer and extracted a document, holding it up to the camera. "Chuck put this together at the same time he put together the paperwork to get Carina out of the DEA, and the President has signed your's as well, all we need to do now is fill in the date on it and it can be enacted inside half an hour, Graham can't deny a direct order from the President when it's proper and legal."

Sarah looked up at Chuck with shining eyes before turning back to the screen. "Thank you General, but if we can enact it that quickly, I think we should keep that as our backstop in case he pushes things, and put together a plan to make this move properly."

The General leaned forward. "What do you have in mind Sarah?"

She looked at Chuck and the back to the screen. "Well, when Chuck showed us the paperwork for the new companies, Mancha Holdings and Piranha Security and Technology, I noted that I'm listed on both under the name of Sarah Carmichael as a director. Something that I don't think even Graham knows about is that about five years ago, a friend lodged everything to legally get my name changed to Sarah Lisa Walker. Now this is something that we haven't actually discussed as yet, but I believe that Chuck wants us to get married as much as I do." Chuck turned to her "Of course I do! But..."

She held up her hand to get him to let her continue. "I do know that he has absolutely no attachment to the name Karol Bartek, so if he legally changed his name to Charles Irving Carmichael and we got married, in the real world, not just in some cover bureau's records, then we would legally be Charles and Sarah Carmichael. That is the point where I'd prefer to enact those orders. Get out of the CIA, and then get married so I can transfer into the NSA and DIA as Chuck's wife, because I'd be under your control, and also because a married woman has some protection against being forced to do seduction missions, so we'd have recourse against others trying to push missions of that nature at the team. I suppose there is nothing stopping me from getting out of the CIA now, but I'd rather do it closer to the wedding so that we can keep operating as a team up until then."

Aunt D was smiling at this point. "I think we can make that work Sarah, Chuck, is this acceptable to you?" Her question was totally facetious, as Chuck was standing there with a goofy grin on his face. "Huh? Oh yeah, that's perfect!"

Her next question was more serious, so she had to make him focus. "Chuck, how long do you think it would it take for you to put together a bullet proof case to have the Intersect Team made into a largely autonomous unit under the NSA's umbrella, like the Special Projects Team is under the DIA's umbrella?" The goofy haze was gone as Chuck ran what would have to be done though his head. "Given how much of a fight Graham and others would put up, it would, as you said, need to be bullet proof, it would take me at least a month or two to put something like that together."

"OK, get started as soon as you can, now how far is Quixote house from being ready to move in?"

"The Piranha offices should be done in a few weeks and B2 should be usable in a similar time frame, but you'd have more hope than I do of getting an answer out of Uncle Roan about the residential areas upstairs."

Aunt D grinned. "Well I think we have a plan, I'll chase up Roan about Quixote House, but first, we all need to keep an eye on Graham, Sarah, no meetings with the CIA or going anywhere alone until we get this sorted, until then I think you should stay with your fiancé and travel to and from work together." Sarah smiled at hearing "fiancé" and nodded. "Chuck, your task is to prepare the case that will let us make the Intersect team autonomous, and we'll get the paperwork started on your name change, now, do you want a proper wedding or just a registry one?"

Chuck looked at Sarah "I'd prefer a real wedding, but what do you want?" "I just want to be married to you, but a real wedding would be nice!" He grinned, "OK, real wedding it is! But there's one thing I have to do first." He took her hands and looked into her eyes. "Sarah Lisa Walker, would you make me the happiest man in the world by agreeing to marry me?" "Yes Chuck, I would love to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you."

Casey started muttering and Aunt D glared at him before turning her gaze back to the newly betrothed and saying "Well that answers that question, but it means that you'll have to organise the wedding, I'm sure Ellie will be a force of nature and will do a lot of this, but let me know if there's anything that we can do."

Chuck said "Thanks Aunt D" absently, but he'd obviously just realised that he was going to have to tell Ellie that they were engaged, AND that they were getting married in the next month or so, and quite frankly, that terrified him.

 **A/N: In case I was being too subtle, Laszlo is Nova and Larkin is The Black Hole.**


	14. Goin' To The Chapel

**This one seems to be fading as well now, so I may drop it and go back to the others that are currently on hiatus, or not, whichever's easier.**

 **You have to wonder whether the show's writers did any research, like, at all though. Right through the series they were calling a one star General the Director of the NSA, when a fairly simple Google search shows that apparently ever since the early seventies, the Director of the NSA has been at least a three or four star General or Admiral because of the jobs that go together with that role, that's a bit of a difference, isn't it? (OK, people have gotten narky about this so I'll put it more plainly. If they'd bothered looking it up they could have just added two stars, or changed what they called her, simple as far as a show like this goes.)  
**

 **Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed etc. (and I'm sure Vera is a character)  
**

After Larkin and Graham's games, the team tried to go back to business as usual, but that's difficult when you're always looking over your shoulder, and worrying about who's coming after someone you care about.

Chuck set up filters on all CIA communications media to alert on ANY mention of Sarah Walker, Walker, or any other name she was known as. This of course generated mountains of hits, but he was quite prepared to look at thousands that had nothing to do with Sarah to avoid missing one that did. Casey stepped up to take over this task though, as Chuck still had to prepare the case to get the Intersect team split off as an autonomous group.

Chuck was working on that in the shop, because it would have been suspicious if he changed his routines for no apparent reason, but he was mainly concentrating on putting together the business case for the autonomous Intersect team. Sarah stayed in the shop with him, to avoid incidents with the CIA.

* * *

As expected, Ellie went totally overboard when they told her about the engagement, and the imminent wedding, and took organising everything on herself (though Chuck and Sarah retained veto power, of course). What she didn't tell them at first was that Aunt D also had a very big hand in the organisation. Aunt D was part of an established and powerful old money family, and as such she had a LOT of very influential connections, influential enough to get Vera Wang to fly to L.A. to personally do the bridal gown fittings and work out with Sarah what she wanted for her wedding dress, along with the maid of honour's, five bride's maids' dresses and the flower girl's dress.

The site for the wedding also came from Aunt D's connections, a family friend had a beautiful traditional hacienda outside of San Diego, both the setting and the chapel were beautiful, and they could put enough unseen security around the location to meet the requirements for the powerful people who wanted to attend the "secret" wedding (with only two exceptions, everyone attending was personally connected to the bride or groom).

There was one condition imposed on the wedding party by the powers that be, that it be a military wedding, and therefore the groom and groom's men had to be in uniform, Chuck's primary affiliation was to the Navy, so his choice of uniform would have been easy, even if his recent promotion to Captain hadn't made the Navy his highest rank again, he'd be wearing his Navy dress whites. Casey, Bry and Jeff would be wearing the versions of the USMC, USA and USN dress blues (respectively) that were the closest match to each other, which appeared to be the formal versions. They'd be wearing mini ribbons only for the occasion.

A benefit they got from the pressure to have a military wedding was that they didn't have to debate who was going to officiate at the wedding, that choice had automatically become a Navy Chaplain.

One thing that they did need help with, tracking down Zondra and getting it set up so that they could make sure that she'd be there for the wedding (Sarah knew who she wanted standing beside her from the moment she proposed the wedding. Ellie was going to be her maid of honour, and Carina, Zondra, Charlotte, Carla and Caroline would be her bride's maids, with her adopted sister Molly as the flower girl).

Roan helped with that, once Sarah had talked to Zondra and she'd agreed (quite happily) to be a bride's maid, Roan had arranged through the Deputy Director he reported through to have Zondra assigned to work with him for a long term assignment of at least a few months, probably longer, so they had Zondra's movements covered under the assignment.

When Sarah was talking to Roan about that, she'd asked him for another favour, one that he was also quite happy to agree to, and that was for him to give her away. Chuck had offered to track her father (if she wanted to call him that) down, but the man had never been a real father to her, and talking to Roan had brought back memories of the Farm. Her memories of the Farm were mostly bad memories, but she remembered that Roan had been a protective father figure to her when she'd known him there, and that was what prompted her to ask him to give her away.

* * *

Of course, for all their focus on the wedding, they still had all their existing CCE, DCS and NSA/CIA workloads to maintain, so they were having briefings with the General and Graham at least once a week.

For one briefing, Graham hadn't bothered to turn up, and Chuck and Casey had to run off to get something from Chuck's, but the General asked Sarah if she could wait while they did that so that they could discuss something. Sarah had agreed and Chuck left with a loving look that would have been dangerously close to giving them away if any hostile parties were watching.

When they'd left and the indicator showed that Casey's house was secured again, the General asked. "Are they gone?" When Sarah said "Yes General" she shook her head, saying "This isn't a General Beckman discussion, Sarah, it's an Aunt D one, if that's OK with you?" Sarah smiled and nodded, wondering where this was going. "OK, now that the boys are out of the way, do you want to tell me the real reason you wanted to push for the wedding to be so soon? This wasn't primarily about your well being, was it?"

Sarah looked at her, wondering whether she could convince her that what she'd said at the time was the whole truth, but when she saw the look in her eye she knew that that wouldn't work. "No, I wasn't happy with what he did to get that last damned medal, so I was thinking that maybe as his wife I'd have better luck in stopping him from taking stupid risks like that. But please don't think that I was lying about the rest, I do believe that that's the best way to get that type of thing off the table."

Aunt D had an amused look on her face as she replied. "Oh, I didn't doubt, or disagree with, what you'd said, I just doubted that it was the real driver behind what you were doing. You do know, though, that there's no way of stopping him doing this don't you? Whenever people are in danger he's going to do what he can to save them, he'll always be a big damn hero."

Sarah grimaced "Yes, I know he's a hero and that will never change, but I'm hoping to be able to, well, guilt him into being more careful by making sure he knows that his WIFE is terrified of something happening to him."

Aunt D took speculative as she said "That just might work, I hope so, I've always been terrified for him when he does those damned operations, I know what Bry was trying to do when he got him started, but he'll always charge into danger with no thought for himself.….."

She looked up at the screen "By the way, you may want to keep that description of the Medal of Honor just between us, most military people would be offended by anyone referring to it like that." Sarah opened mouth to respond, but Aunt D held up her hand to stop her. "I understand what you meant, and don't disagree with that, but if things pan out the way we're expecting them to, you're going to be around the military a lot more than you are now in the future, and they tend to be closed minded about things like that."

Sarah looked at her. "I don't suppose you can expand on that point?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, no, it's too tentative and sensitive at the moment, but I promise to fill you, and Chuck and Colonel Casey, in as soon as I can…."

"Hold up there Missy, Chuck wasn't the only one who got a promotion and a damned medal out of that action, you were promoted to a full Commander and got your Navy Cross and Major Casey was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and got his second Navy Cross, so you all did stupid, heroic things that day!"

Sarah looked pissed off. "I was following Chuck to try and keep him alive, and as far as I know, so was Casey, Chuck was the one who charged into it."

"And saved the day"

"And saved the day, like the damn hero that he is." Sarah still didn't look happy, agreeing to that.

"Well, I only hope that your plan works and stopping his wife worrying about him will be enough to hold him back a little from that sort of thing."

"So do I Aunt D, so do I. OK, they're coming back, we'll get back to you when we have some details together for this mission, goodbye General."

"Goodbye Commander Walker."

* * *

Watching the enormous "Mr" Colt dangling Chuck out the window five storeys off the ground, Sarah wondered whether they were ever get away from danger, though she wasn't sure that this time she could blame it on Chuck.

She forced herself to pay attention when Casey ordered Colt to "Let the geek go!" and immediately shouted "Wait! Not out the window!" Casey gave her a quick look of amusement but Colt didn't look at all amused as he threw Chuck at them as if he was nothing more than a little soft toy, and leapt out the window.

Sarah was checking Chuck over frantically as Casey ran to the window, to find the cables for a window washer's scaffold just outside and to see Colt disappearing into the darkness with at a limping run. Casey growled and turned back to them "Well, did you get it?" To which Chuck held up the device with a grin.

Both Sarah and the General had to hide their reactions in the briefing what Graham said "Excellent work Sarah, Casey" as if Chuck didn't exist or hadn't been a major part of their recovering the device. When Graham went on to say that the transporters would be there to collect the cipher and return it to D.C. at the earliest opportunity, Sarah asked just what the cipher was.

The General looked uncomfortable when she explained that the cipher was the artificial brain for the new Intersect computer. They could see that something was up, but Chuck had to keep the expected act up, so he asked "The new Intersect?" Graham actually deigned to answer him for once. "We've been working on a new one ever since the original Intersect was destroyed, the cipher is the final piece." So Chuck had to ask "What happens to me, the old Intersect?" "Tomorrow the new computer will be on-line, and Operation Bartek officially comes to an end, you'll be done with us, no more briefings, no more missions, no more spies, enjoy the rest of your life Chuck."

Both Sarah and Casey were facing Chuck, so they didn't need to mask their expressions, Casey was looking concerned, and Sarah was looking terrified. They waited until the call was finished, and then headed straight to Chuck's house to wait for the video link that they knew would come through.

When the General came up on screen, she looked grey. "You know what this means, don't you?"

Chuck nodded, "Yeah, he's going to have me eliminated."

She nodded as well. "Luckily, Colonel Casey's reputation as my lap dog." She looked at Casey "Sorry John." He grunted in amusement "Why General? We've been building that reputation for nearly twenty years to fool idiots like Graham." She smiled at that. "Colonel Casey's reputation has made Graham accept that he is the best man for the job, so when the new Intersect goes live, he will be given the order to terminate you, Chuck."

"I was hoping that this would have dragged out a bit longer, so we had the Intersect team well away from these bastards by the time that this came up, but now we're going to have to put on a show to fool them."

"As you all know, because you were the ones who set it up, we've been having the surveillance there in Chuck's house cut in and out all the time, and we'll use that to stage this. The surveillance will cut out, and you three will disappear, closely followed by Ellie after she deals with the Police."

"The scene will be staged so that there will be bullet holes, signs of a struggle, and lots of blood of both Chuck and John's types and a little of Sarah's sprayed around the living room, so the scenario that will be presented will be that John terminated Chuck, but Sarah discovered him with Chuck's body, they fought and she killed him. Sarah then got rid of the bodies to cover her tracks, undoubtedly tossing John's in the sewer somewhere but giving the man she loved a decent burial before going off grid because she'd shown her hand by killing the man who'd killed the man she loved."

"Ellie will come home, find the damage and the blood and call the Police, and then she'll disappear into witness protection because of the double murder that obviously happened in her house. After that we'll have to give you all new identities, but that's nothing new to any of you, and then you can all go on with your lives."

She looked at them. "Does anyone have any problems with this scenario?" Sarah asked "What about the wedding?" "We may have to change some details, and remove some guests that we're not 100% sure of, but I don't see any difficulty with it going ahead unless you two have changed your minds?"

"No! No, there's no way that I'm not marrying Chuck!" Casey snickered at that but stepped back quickly at the look Sarah sent his way.

The General was also having trouble keeping a grin off her face as she said "Chuck, I presume that you still want to marry Sarah?"

Chuck looked at Sarah. "Definitely!"

"OK, so the wedding's going ahead as soon as we've got the fake double execution out of the way."

They looked at her to see whether she was laughing, but she had a straight face, so Chuck and Sarah just nodded and said "Yes."

They didn't feel like work after that, but they had to keep up appearances, so they headed down to the shop. Chuck had a thought when he got there and called Aunt D to ask whether she wanted him to drop building the case to make the Intersect team autonomous, but she asked him to keep working on it, because even with their team gone, the Intersect project had to be kept out of the hands of men like Graham.

They filled Ellie, Jeff and Anna in on what was going to happen, then Chuck got into the hospital's systems to change Ellie's schedule so she was on the early shift the next morning, and they worked the day through until they went home at 19:00. They spent most of the night packing up the things that they cared about and storing them in the bunker, they'd be safe in there until a moving crew could come through to pick them up.

Around midnight, they gave up and went to bed in a melancholy mood, as they'd had some good times in this house over the past six years, and especially the last year for Chuck and Sarah, but this would be their last night here.

At 05:00 the next morning, Chuck and Sarah were woken by the phone ringing. When Chuck answered, Aunt D was excitedly yelling at him "Abort the operation, abort!" Chuck tried to calm her down and then gave up and putting the phone on speaker he just said "OK Aunt D, I get it, the operation's off, but why?"

She tried to calm herself and then said. "Graham was so determined to get control of the Intersect Project that he went into the Intersect facility an hour before the joint Intersect upload was scheduled to happen with a team of CIA Agents and his own technicians and ran the upload program."

"When he activated it, though, the Intersect was destroyed, it was some kind of Trojan Horse and as soon as it came on line, it kicked something off that somehow caused a massive power surge and everything was completely fried, every computer and device connected to the network, and everyone in the Intersect room. Graham, his ten agents and the technicians working in there are all just charred lumps of meat and the entire Intersect system is gone!"

She stopped to draw a breath. "So cancel the operation, we don't need to do it now!"

Chuck and Sarah fell into each other's arms, and then he pulled himself together enough to ask Aunt D to call Casey to tell him because he had to call Ellie, and Jeff and Anna as well, with that they hung up and made the calls they needed to make.

* * *

Once they'd cancelled all the plans for Chuck and Casey's imminent demises, they had to jump back into full steam ahead for the wedding, because juggling a guest list as distinguished as their's was a tad daunting. As well as the family and close friends, they had the people that Chuck and Ellie had been working for and with for the past fourteen years, and along with a surprising number of flag officers that included the heads of the four military services, Chief of the National Guard, Commandant of the Coast Guard, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, the Director of the NSA and US Cyber Command, the Director of the DIA, the Director of National Intelligence, and most of the Senior and Flag officers of the SEALs as well as the SEAL, Special Forces, SAD and Marine Raider guys who'd had the most to do with Chuck (and Sarah), and they also had to cater for the President and the First Lady.

The dignitaries, while they added a lot of requirements, also helped them keep the wedding a secret, as a collection of people at that level in one place meant that the event had to be secured at the top level, and that in turn meant that the specially selected security forces would be hidden from both the wedding and outsiders, and all the guests would be transported to the wedding in secret, so even they didn't know where it was.

* * *

About a week and a half before the wedding, they had another major problem. To keep up appearances with the CIA until they lobbed the Presidential order at them, Sarah was spending about one night a week at her apartment, so she went back to the apartment after work, but this time she DID pick up the signs as soon as she opened the door, and sure enough, once the door was fully open she could see Larkin laying on the bed with a smug grin on his face.

Sarah stood in the doorway with her hand on her pistol but not drawing it yet, and said "What are you doing here?"

"Come in and close the door or you'll let everyone know I'm here!"

"Answer the question, what, are, you, doing, here?"

"I discovered some intel and the bosses sent me in because only I can do the mission, now get in here and close that door!"

Not moving an inch, Sarah said "That may explain why you're in L.A. but it doesn't explain what you're doing in my apartment!"

"I'm deep cover and I can't be seen getting a hotel room, so I'll have to stay with you Mrs Anderson."

As he said this line, his gloating smile grew wider and more lascivious, he actually thought that she was going to go for this?

"Well you may have problems getting a hotel room, but I don't Mr Anderson, goodbye!"

With that she shut the door and disappeared before he could leave the room, heading straight to the car park, jumping in her Porsche and taking off.

At Chuck's, she put her Porsche straight into the garage so that it was out of sight and called Chuck to beg him to come home straight away.

Chuck was confused and just asked "What's wrong Sarah?", but he was too stunned to speak when she said "Larkin's in my apartment and he told me he's here to do a mission, and I'm pretty sure he's set something up so that I have to work with him."

He just said. "I'll be there in five, ten tops." and hung up, True to his word, he was pulling into the drive in six minutes, hopping out almost before the van stopped and running into the house.

After he'd held her for a few minutes he picked up the integrated keyboard to initiate a link to Aunt D and the second her image came up he shouted at her "What the fuck is going on?"

She rocked back in her seat, shocked to see this much anger coming from him, then she took in Sarah's state and realised.

"Oh no, that bastard's already there, isn't he?"

"Yes, he is, why didn't you tell us about it?"

"Because I only got the information five minutes ago and I was informed that he wouldn't be arriving in L.A. until tomorrow!"

Chuck backed off at that, and tried to calm down, Sarah put her hand on his chest, over his heart, and could feel his heart rate slowing, so she left it there as she turned her head to look at the screen.

"I'm sorry Aunt D, I just got a shock when I got to my apartment to find him there, and the way he was calling me Mrs Anderson was telling me that he's set something up to make me work with him, so I got over here as fast as I could and called Chuck to come home."

"No, I'm sorry Sarah, but like I said, I only got this five minutes ago and I haven't even had time to call them and tell them where to shove their demands, wait a sec, this is what I received." She hit a few keys and a window popped up with the message she'd received. "As you can see, they're claiming that Larkin has intercepted intel that Fulcrum has stolen a chip with an encrypted file that contains highly sensitive information that was intended to make up a refresh for the Intersect. That file has been delivered to this Von Hayes to have it decrypted. Apparently that file includes the cover identities for many agents"

"Obviously Larkin convinced them that he's the only one who can recover it and that he needs to get his old partner back to work with him on this mission. Their problem, though, is that there's no way they're interfering with our team and we're going to use the DNI to convince them of that. Hold on, stay on the line, but I'm going to cut the audio from you while I call this prick."

* * *

She cut their audio and then called the Acting Director of Central Intelligence on speaker. "Director, General Diane Beckman here, I received your email but I cannot allow this mission to proceed as you have requested."

They heard his furious response "Who the hell do you think you are Beckman? You'll do as your damn well told and Walker will be doing this mission with Agent Larkin!"

"I take it that your predecessor didn't leave the parameters for the Intersect team for you then, Director?"

"What the hell are you talking about woman?"

"I'm referring to the fact that no-one can be read into or inserted into the Intersect Project without the prior approval of the DNI and/or the President. Obviously the DNI hasn't seen fit to read you into the project at this point, otherwise you would have already known this, so I cannot discuss this with you any further until he does so. Recall Agent Larkin Director, he cannot be allowed to interfere with this project, as I'm sure the DNI will explain to you if and when he sees fit to read you into the project."

"I don't care about your damn project woman, Walker is CIA, and she'll do whatever damn missions I tell her to!"

"No Director, as I had to remind Director Graham recently, Agent Walker and another Agent in the Intersect team have spent more than a year now building a solid cover as a successful married couple in these circles, and having her appear at a function with another man under another name would destroy their capability to operate, so Agent Walker cannot be released for a mission of this nature with Agent Larkin or any other Agent."

"As I just told you, Walker is CIA and she'll do what I tell her to!"

"I'm afraid not Director, you cannot order that without express approval from the DNI or the President, as I said, I realise that you haven't been read into the project yet but I can assure you that our operating parameters are very specific, your mission cannot proceed as you have requested until we receive orders from the appropriate authorities."

"In the meantime, I must request that you recall Agent Larkin immediately, as he's already attempting to interfere with our team, I note that you advised me that he would not be arriving in L.A. until tomorrow, but he is here now and he has already broken into the private residence of one of our team members."

The Acting DCI slammed the phone down without a word and she held up a finger while she quickly called the private line of the DNI to fill him in on what just happened, and sent him the email she'd received.

* * *

When she'd finished her call she re-enabled their audio and Chuck asked "You enjoyed that, didn't you?" She smirked at the screen "Of course, didn't you?"

Chuck shared a look with Sarah and grinned "Yeah."

The fun finished there, though, as Chuck turned serious "We're going to have to go in and get that chip, aren't we?"

Aunt D matched his tone as she nodded. "I'm waiting on the response from the DNI but yes, we can't afford Fulcrum or anyone else getting their hands on that information, so the Carmichaels will have one more mission before they actually get married." Both Chuck and Sarah nodded, but they were in a better mood now because they knew that they could do this together.

The next morning, they were in the middle of their briefing and planning the mission at Casey's when someone tried to get in the front door. Casey quickly brought up the external camera to get a look at them, and it was Larkin. Before either of the others could move he grabbed a pistol and headed to the door, wrenching it open and shoving the muzzle straight into Larkin's face. Larkin swore and called him an idiot then pushed his way past him into the room.

The General looked at him and said "Larkin! What are you doing here, your Director was told to recall you!"

He almost sneered at the screen. "Obviously you don't understand the significance of this General, so we decided that I needed to explain to you what needs to be done so my partner and I can recover this intel before it's too late."

Anyone that knew the General could see how much effort it was for her to reign in her anger before she responded. "Mr Larkin, you appear to have forgotten that you do not have a partner, and especially not here. We are quite aware of the importance of this intel and the DNI has tasked our team with recovering the chip, and any copies of the file, so you are not required, Leave!"

This time he did sneer. "Who's going to work with Sarah to get it back, Casey?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but no, for your information Mr Bartek will be working with Agent Walker on this mission."

"Are you crazy? He's a computer repairman, not a spy! This is an important mission and Sarah needs to be with a real spy, Me."

"Mr Larkin, on the orders of the DNI you are not to interfere with this team or their mission, if you attempt to do so the repercussions will be severe! Colonel Casey, remove Mr Larkin immediately!"

Casey smiled grimly as he said "Yes ma'am!" before grabbing Larkin by the scruff of the neck and frog marching him to the front door where he did a very good rendition of a dwarf toss with him, getting at least six or seven yards out of it before he ploughed into the grass.

He grunted disgustedly at himself because while the distance was OK, he must have pulled his throw because he'd meant Larkin to go face first into the path, but he was off to one side just enough to miss the path.

* * *

At Von Hayes' birthday party, Sarah and Chuck played it perfectly, smoothly but quickly ramping up the PDA so that no-one doubted why they were slipping away. They found the vault and got into it without any real trouble, but the chip and the files weren't there, so they closed it up, covered their tracks and headed back to the party to try and find what Hayes had done with it.

Just before they got there Casey called them on their earpieces to tell them that Hayes was leaving the main party with a woman, but it didn't look like it was for any fun purposes, so they diverted to where Casey said Hayes and the woman were heading.

They saw Hayes and a guard going into a dining room with the woman, so they slipped down the hall to the server's entrance to see what was going on through the gap between the doors. The woman's face was obscured by the wing of hair she had artfully hanging down the side of her face, but when she spoke Chuck got a flash which confirmed that she was Fulcrum. That was confirmed by their dialogue that immediately followed that anyway when she said he'd promised to have the information on the chip decrypted for them two weeks ago, so what was he doing throwing a party?

Hayes tried to be suave, but he just came across as a jerk, at least he was bright enough to realise that though and changed tacks to ask about his fee. He, and the guard apparently, obviously weren't paying attention to what she was doing though because they were both caught out when she produced a pistol with a suppressor attached in the middle of saying "Forget the fifteen million", and shot the guard in the chest.

Hayes had a panic attack looking at the dead guard as he stumbled away from the body, so when she pointed the gun at him and said "I think I'll take my chip now", he started rambling about "It's in my vault, I'll get it for you" and went to pull the keys out of his pocket, but he was so nervous that he fumbled and dropped them, right in front of the gap between the doors where Chuck was. When he saw the key ring, Chuck got another flash that told him that the chip they were looking for was ON that key ring.

Chuck hustled Sarah into the kitchen across the hall to tell her about the chip, but as they were coming back out they heard Larkin's voice, and looking down the hall they saw him pointing a gun at Hayes. "Hayes, you're going to open your vault for me and get me that chip!"

At that point the woman came out of the dining room (hiding her pistol behind her purse) and asked "What are you doing here Larkin?" He smirked at her "Juliette! Oh, this is perfect, I get the grand slam, the chip, Hayes, and a senior Fulcrum operative, when I bring all of you in I'll be able to ask for anything I want. This will show them who the real spy is!"

She smirked back at him and said "I'm afraid not Larkin!" and raised her gun to put two bullets into his chest. Hayes was standing there, frozen in fear, as she turned back to him, and Chuck saw an empty wine bottle on the hall table right next to the door where he was. He quickly grabbed the bottle and threw it, and while the balance wasn't much good, it flew true so that the base of the bottle impacted her right between the eyes, knocking her out cold.

He and Sarah ran down the hall, and she covered Hayes while Chuck picked up the Fulcrum agent's gun to take over that job so she could check on Larkin. She quickly checked for a pulse before looking at Chuck and shaking her head, so Chuck grabbed the key ring off Hayes and held the chip up in front of him, asking him if there were any other copies of the file.

When Hayes didn't answer he touched the end of the suppressor to his forehead and asked again. "Are there any other copies of the file from this chip?" Hayes almost wet himself as he babbled "No, no, that's the only copy, I swear!" Chuck nodded and pushed him towards the back door while he bent down to pick up the Fulcrum agent and followed Sarah and Hayes, calling Casey as they went.

"Casey, we've got the chip, Hayes and the Fulcrum agent, bring the van around and meet us out back!" As usual, Casey's only reply was "Roger". They were waiting less than five minutes before he pulled up and they pushed Hayes in, throwing the Fulcrum agent in after him and they where gone in thirty seconds.

When they were under way, Chuck looked at Sarah and asked if she was OK? She smiled tiredly back at him, saying "Of course, we've recovered the information, got Hayes, captured a senior Fulcrum agent without her even seeing us, and we won't have to worry about Larkin ever again, it was a perfect solution."

Casey looked around "What, did you take out Larkin? You know I deserved a piece of that!"

Sarah shook her head "I didn't, she did, just before…. he took her out with a empty wine bottle from eight or nine yards away." She looked down at the woman and said, half to herself "Speaking of her..." and she quickly grabbed a hood and some zip ties, pulling the hood over her head and securing her wrists and ankles before handing some more to Chuck to secure Hayes.

Chuck waited in Casey's Crown Vic while Casey and Sarah signed in Hayes and the Fulcrum agent at the local NSA facility and made a quick report to the General, and then they went home.

The next day, the General filled them in on the accusations and threats that the Acting DCI had been making, even with the video evidence that Chuck had obtained by hacking into Hayes' mansion's security cameras, and told Sarah that she'd had the paperwork served to have her removed from the CIA while he was arguing on a video conference with her and the DNI, so he'd had to formally confirm to the DNI that he had it and she'd been officially processed out of the CIA, so she was a free woman, well as far as that went anyway. She finished with "I'm sorry for doing this without your OK Sarah, but it was fairly obvious he was planning to drag you back and make an example out of you, so I thought that it was safer to process it while I had a witness like the DNI right there." Sarah smiled "That's fine Aunt D, the wedding's just over a week away, so this will give me a little more time to get ready for it."

* * *

The wedding party stayed at the hacienda the night before the wedding, and the only problem was when Ellie had an argument with Chuck and Sarah about sleeping together the night before their wedding, eventually Sarah had gone off. "Shit Ellie, we will be SLEEPING together, just like we have most nights for the last year, if I'm not with Chuck tonight I'll be a wreck tomorrow, and I'm NOT going to be a mess for my wedding, so just fucking drop it!" At that Ellie apologised and ran off sniffling, and Sarah tried to get Chuck to go after her, but Chuck shook his head, saying "Not this time."

The day of the wedding dawned perfect, the sky was clear and everything was going well, Ellie had come to Sarah with a heartfelt apology at breakfast, but she was still terrifying everyone as she stormed about making sure that everything was just right. She stressed about the flowers, even though Chuck was sure that they had every gardenia in Southern California, at least, already, and was generally stressing everybody out, so Carina slipped her something to calm her down.

When Carina did that, Chuck looked her in the eye and said "You have the antidote for that here, right? Sarah will be pissed if her maid of honour is out of action!" She smiled up at him and hugged him, saying "Of course Chuckie, you don't think I'd do anything to screw up your and Sarah's wedding do you?"

They somehow got through everything and Chuck was standing at the front of the chapel waiting for Sarah. Looking at the people in the chapel, he laughed to himself, because it looked like nothing but a mass of uniforms, even though probably only about two thirds of them were in uniform. He did appreciate the fact that it looked like everyone had complied with their request to wear dress blues with no more than ribbons, no medals or badges if possible (except that the officers who'd be making up the sabre arch were in dress whites). They hadn't wanted their wedding pictures to look like a three ring circus, and this way everyone looked dignified.

After smiling at their guests, he looked across to the other side of the aisle and smiled at the girls, it had been a lovely touch on Sarah's part to insist that they be part of her bride's maids, to make them part of their wedding, if he could have loved her any more he would have for that.

He forgot everything else when the bridal march started, though. Molly looked so adorable as she solemnly scattered gardenia petals across the aisle, but even that faded out when he saw Sarah. He tended to agree with Vera when she said that Sarah's gown was the best one she'd ever come up with, but he had to admit that that was probably largely because of who was wearing it for him. He did think that the main reason that Vera had offered to come out to oversee any last minute fitting issues with any of the girls' dresses so she could come to the wedding, though.

As the grand master of pomp and ceremony, Roan was perfect to walk Sarah down the aisle, he finished with kissing her hand before handing her up onto the dais beside Chuck and going to sit with Aunt D and their daughter Josie. The only stumble through the ceremony was Chuck's, because he forgot part of his vows as he lost himself staring into her eyes, but her laugh at that brought him out of the daze and he managed to finish OK.

As they exited the chapel, they had a dozen of the most senior SEAL officers in dress whites forming a sabre arch, with the Commander, Naval Special Warfare Command as the senior usher, and that certainly made for some impressive photo ops. When the rest of the wedding party exited the chapel, they had a departure from standard practice in that each of the groom's men was escorting two of the bride's maids, Casey walked Ellie and Charlotte out, Bry walked Carina and Carla out and Jeff walked Zondra and Caroline out, and then they were followed by Chuck's dad walking out his mother and Emma.

The wedding pictures did come out beautifully, and Vera wasn't the only one who begged for a copy of the group picture especially. Chuck and Sarah were in the middle, of course, with Molly in front of them, and two groups of three on either side, Sarah looked stunning, all the girls looked beautiful, Molly looked adorable and Chuck and the guys looked fairly impressive, too, all in all it made for a hell of a picture.

At the reception in the courtyard of the hacienda, Chuck and Sarah were circulating and laughing with everyone. When they came to the President and the First Lady, the First Lady was shocked when Chuck introduced them to his daughters, as she couldn't believe that he could have three teenage daughters at his age. She tried to be subtle as she looked at Sarah, but Sarah just laughed, saying "No, they're not mine, but I'd be the proudest woman in the world if they were!" as she put her arm around Carla (who was standing beside her at the time).

After catching up with everyone, eating and dancing (it took Chuck a while to work through Sarah, his daughters, Ellie, Molly, his Mother, Emma, Carina, and Zondra before his dance card was free for anyone else though), Sarah and Chuck got changed into their going away clothes, hopped into Sarah's Porsche and took off (with Sarah driving of course, she'd let him drive her baby a few times, but they had an audience here!)


	15. What Honeymoon?

**BTW: In case anyone missed it, Larkin's dead, the Creepy Elfin Queen killed him, and Casey was upset about missing out.**

 **Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

As they drove away from the hacienda, Chuck wished that they could have a proper honeymoon, but there was too much going on that they couldn't afford to let slip, and they also couldn't afford to be in a position where they didn't have immediate support available in case the CIA came after Sarah. Hopefully they'd have a chance to have a delayed honeymoon down the track.

He was glad to note, though, that Sarah's driving didn't terrify him quite as much as it did at first as she was having fun, sliding the Porsche through a series of tight bends on the way to the I-15.

They stopped in at a couple of wineries along to the way to check out the vintages that they had available (and to give Sarah a chance to clean the "Just Married" signs off her car and make certain that no-one had scratched it when they were putting the signs on), so it was after dark by the time they got back to Glendale, which was part of the plan anyway to avoid people recognising Sarah's Porsche.

When they pulled into the secure parking area of Quixote House, they were glad to see that the contractors who were working on fitting out the building had kept clear of the designated areas, as they'd been told, so she had somewhere to park her Porsche that was well away from anything else.

Because they couldn't go to a resort for a normal honeymoon, Aunt D had "persuaded" Uncle Roan to make sure that the Penthouse was finished in time for the wedding, so they did have somewhere special to go. Casey and Ellie had brought some clothes in for them and made sure that the fridge, freezer and pantry (as well as the bar and wine cellar) were well stocked, so they'd seen the Penthouse, but neither Chuck nor Sarah had as yet.

When they stepped out of the elevator at the Penthouse and took in the sight in front of them, they just looked at each other. They knew that the Penthouse was big, but they weren't expecting this exquisitely elegant understated opulence that screamed style and money. Roan had said that he wanted to project an image for the Carmichaels that said who they were, but Chuck was starting to wonder whether he could live up to "who they were" if this was it.

They headed to the master bedroom and it was as impressive as the living area, but when Chuck went to drop their bags in the walk-in wardrobe/dressing room, though, he called Sarah to come in there. When she stepped in there with him, she just stopped, too, because the wardrobe was as big as his bedroom had been back at Echo Park. When they'd taken the wardrobe/dressing room in, she took his hand and they headed to the ensuite, and it was just as over the top.

They weren't sure that they wanted to ask Roan what he'd been thinking when he specified the spa bath and shower, as they were both easily big enough for four people and were set up to cater for more than one, but Sarah did have to admit that she loved the twin vanities, mirrors and lighting, and the makeup drawers in "her" vanity were brilliant. If there was ever a bathroom designed for a woman, this was it.

Next stop on Chuck's list was the workroom, which they accessed via the adjoining door from inside the bedroom (there was an external door, as well, but access to and from the bedroom was expected to be most common method). The requirements he'd given Roan were for the equivalent of what he'd had back at Casa Bartek, computer facilities, ensuite, kitchenette and gym facilities. This workroom had all that, but it was far more (he did note that the couch or sofa that he'd mentioned wasn't there, but he was pretty sure that that would have been due to a veto from Sarah rather than an oversight on Roan's part, so he didn't say anything).

There was an elegant glass desk along one wall that had three separate workstations along it, and each of them was the equivalent of the operations centre setup in the bunker at Casa Bartek. That meant that Sarah had access to as much computing capacity as she could use, and at the same time Chuck could be juggling tasks on two other separate setups with the same capacity.

The workroom had a large wardrobe and ensuite, nothing like the master bedroom setup but still more than Chuck's room back at Casa Bartek had, and the kitchenette was more like a small kitchen. The gym facilities spread across the windows gave them a fully equipped gym that had just everything that could be needed, and the view through the floor to ceiling windows was beautiful, pretty much the same view as one side of the master bedroom. For the room that they'd be spending a fair bit of their time in, it was great, but before they left they went to look at "the wall".

Roan had transferred their parts of the wall in the bunker to here. They laughed at the "Mowgli" and "Shanti" name plates at the top of each of their sections, and then they started taking a closer look. Chuck noted that the name on the transcripts for all his degrees had been changed to Charles Irving Carmichael, and that the certificates, pictures, news articles and awards had all been framed and mounted more professionally in orderly rows, but he also noted, in both his and Sarah's sections, that there was a gap at the end of the certificates of rank.

They looked at each other when they saw that, as they knew that there was a story there. Sarah told him about Aunt D's comments about spending more time around military people, and in turn Chuck told her about the comment from the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the wedding about them seeing a lot more of him in the future. Obviously someone was working to a plan here, one that involved the two of them, and Aunt D was part of it. The question that worried both of them though was, why weren't they being told what the hell was going on?

Not being able to do anything about that for now, they decided to check out the rest of their new abode. The other five bedrooms were all large and well appointed, less than the master bedroom but bigger than most they'd seen, they had good sized walk in wardrobes, large, well set out ensuites and all the bedrooms had king sized beds except the master bedroom, which had an 8' long by 9' wide ultra bed, but once again, they weren't sure that they wanted to ask Roan about what he'd been thinking there.

The last separate area at that end of the Penthouse was the games room, a bit bigger and longer than one of the bedrooms, there was a full sized billiards table, a couple of card tables, a variety of traditional board games (chess and the like) and a full complement of video game paraphernalia (Chuck was quite happy to see that last, as video gaming was still his guilty pleasure, every now and then he'd immerse himself in Call of Duty or something for a few hours or more, just to get a break from thinking).

Chuck was a little surprised that there wasn't a home theatre room, until he looked through the house manual and found that all the glass up there was smart glass, so with a few keystrokes, the living area could be blacked out, and the 4K projector and 25', 2.35:1 cinema screen lowered from the ceiling, while the entire place was wired for sound with high quality speaker systems. That was certainly enough of a home theatre for their needs. There were also several large flat screens around the walls, some of which were covered up when the cinema screen was lowered, that catered for more common usages quite well.

Another thing they noted in the living room was that the furniture was all on lockable rollers, so it was a simple matter to unlock the rollers and rearrange the furniture, or move it back to the walls for a open area, perfect for all sorts of parties. The grand piano off in the corner was an interesting touch, but when Chuck tried it out, it had a beautiful tone, so that would definitely get some use as well.

The kitchen could be closed off from the living area, and it could easily cater for functions for fifty people or more, with multiple cook tops and ovens it was almost restaurant level, so that fitted with the entertainment angle as well. The dining room area adjacent to the kitchen had two tables that could extend to cater for up to twelve people each as well as a number of smaller tables that could be packed away with the extra chairs.

Once they'd explored the inside areas of the Penthouse, as Chuck knew where the controls were for the lighting for the outside areas now they decided to check out the roof garden as well. When Chuck lit up the roof garden though, they couldn't believe it. The area was quite large, and most of the way around the edge and dotted about the middle were gardenia trees and bushes, with rhododendron trees and bushes interspersed with them here and there to add a bit of colour.

Right across the other end there was a 30M x 7.5M glass sided pool that was 1.8M deep (but filled to 1.5M). When they walked out into the roof garden to have a better look, they found that the lush green "grass" appeared to be a nice, soft variation of astro turf, and the lighting was artfully placed to provide a soft, relatively even light (which could be turned up or down as required). There were also fairy lights strung through all the trees and bushes and the effect they gave was magical.

They walked down to the pool end and found that there was an at least twelve person Jacuzzi in the corner next to the pool, along with a changing room that was more of a guest cabin, fitted out with an ensuite, sofa bed and kitchenette/bar setup. Maybe this was another one of Uncle Roan's ideas that they really didn't want explained?

After they'd checked everything out, they stood in the middle of the "lawn" and Chuck wrapped his arms around Sarah as they looked around. "Do you think you will be happy living here Mrs Carmichael?" She craned her head around to smile up at him "Yes, I think I will be quite happy here Mr Carmichael."

Chuck shook his head "I know you have probably been in a lot more impressive places than this, but I just can't believe what Roan did here!" Sarah shook her head too "Bigger, yes, but I don't know about more impressive, most of them tended to look cheap and tacky because they were too gaudy and overdone, no style at all, this is something else, it says rich and powerful, certainly, but even more so it's saying taste and sophistication, it's magical."

She was quiet for a while. "It could well be that this is what's under Roan's facade, he always plays the lothario, but when I was at the Farm, he was kind and supportive, and he protected me against those who were trying to push me to use sex all the time. I loved the stories he told me about your mother." Chuck looked concerned at her and she laughed.

"No, not that kind of story! I took out most of your mother's records at the Farm and he was telling me about the things that the ones in their group did back in the day, including your mother and Aunt D, though he'd never tell me who she was, those stories were just about my only break from all the crap at that place, I think they helped keep me sane."

"Yeah, he talked me through problems when I was a kid sometimes, just after Mom left I started getting interested in girls, but I didn't have anyone I could talk to, I was really confused, so eventually I called Uncle Roan and he helped me."

Sarah had turned around at that and was looking at him with a stunned expression on her face "How old were you?"

"About ten."

"You got taught how to handle women by Roan Montgomery when you were ten? No wonder you got yourself in so much trouble a couple of years later!" The laughter on her face took the bite out of her words, mostly.

Seeing the touch of hurt on his face she moved in and reached up to kiss him. "So, are you ready to try out that sinfully decadent bed that he got for us?"

Chuck grinned as he swept her up in his arms and strode across the "yard" towards the doors into the penthouse. While he was carrying her, Sarah snagged the controller off him and started shutting down the lights from the pool end down, so by the time they went inside the yard was dark, and she shut and locked the door behind them.

Their sleepwear was in the bags sitting in the wardrobe, but they weren't likely to worry about that on their wedding night. When she came up for air after the third or fourth time, Sarah looked across the bed and giggled. Chuck cracked an eye open to look at her "What?"

When she looked across the bed again he followed her eyes and realised what she was laughing about, they had this enormous bed and they were only using about a quarter of it. "Yeah, it does seem a bit of a waste, doesn't it?"

The look Sarah gave him then was almost predatory as she whispered huskily. "Well, we'll just have to work harder to make sure we use every inch of this bed!" He grinned and leaned forward to capture her lips with his.

* * *

Around 9:00 AM the next morning Chuck's mobile rang. He answered it in case it was important, but was thinking that whoever it was better start running if it wasn't. It was Aunt D. "Chuck, I'm sorry to call you on the morning after your wedding, but I have to go back to D.C. today and I was hoping I could have a word with the two of you before I go?"

Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded "OK, come on up, I expect that you're downstairs now?" "Yes, thank you."

With that they hung up and Chuck and Sarah reluctantly got up and put some clothes on, meeting her (or rather them as Roan and Josie were with her) out in the living room. After greeting them with hugs and kisses, they asked Aunt D what she wanted to talk about, and when she vaguely said something about the team and where they were going, Chuck suggested that they talk in the workroom and led the way to its external door.

Sarah sat cross legged on the desk and pushed one of the chairs to Aunt D. One of the first things Aunt D did was pull out the packet of Sarah's new NSA credentials and hand them to her. As they'd agreed, she'd kept the name Sarah Walker for Sarah's NSA credentials, partly to keep word of their marriage under wraps, but also to make the best use of her fame as the legendary Sarah Walker. So now her NSA ID was for Special Agent Sarah Walker, her DIA ID was for Special Agent Sarah Carmichael, and her FBI ID was for Special Agent Katie O'Connell.

After that, she asked Chuck how the case for making the team autonomous was going. Chuck scooted over to the desk and reached around Sarah to get the keyboard and put what he had so far up on the screen. He explained that between Larkin and the wedding, he hadn't had time to finish it yet, but Larkin, Graham and the Acting DCI had actually given them the ammunition to make a much stronger case than they would have had without their actions.

Aunt D asked Chuck how much longer it would take for him to finish it? Chuck looked at what was up in front of them and said "Not long, an hour, maybe two?" At that Aunt D looked at both of them and asked if they'd forgive her if she asked him to get it finished so she could take it with her? Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded, so he said "OK" and moved to the desk. Sarah went to get out of his way but he stopped her with a hand on her knee, looking up at her to say "Stay there, please? I like having you right here." She smiled and nodded, running her fingers through his hair.

At that Aunt D asked if Chuck could listen as he worked and he nodded, so she started talking. "I realised that I put my foot in it with you, Sarah, and I overheard the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs doing the same with you, Chuck, at the wedding, so I thought that it was time to tell you as much as I could about what we're working on before I go back."

"Chuck, you know that you've been attracting a lot of attention since you were in your mid-teens with the way you've performed on all those special ops missions, you've done at least as many serious special ops missions as anyone else, if not more, in the last twelve years because you've been going with any team that had a mission, but even more so the work you do planning and directing those missions has been noted by the commanders for the last ten years or so."

"They've been following you, and that's part of the reason they haven't passed up any opportunities to award or promote you when the special operations teams and their commanders recommend it, because the respect and confidence you inspire in all the special ops teams and other serious units like that is quite rare."

"That's why they've been grooming you to take on the role that we've been trying to put together for a while now. They've noted how much more successful these operations were when the teams have full confidence in the person planning and directing the operation, and no-one else has earned that confidence across all the teams the way that you have. They see you as their best chance of having our men and women coming back in one piece, with a successful operation and minimal collateral damage."

She stopped for a moment, trying to decide how to word the next part and then turned to Sarah.

"And all this has accelerated quite a bit in the last year since you became part of the team Sarah. You may not have been officially part of the military before that, but you've been famous in the intelligence community, and you worked enough with the special ops teams over the past six years to earn their trust and respect as well."

"Since you've been working with Chuck though, you've shown similar abilities in planning and command to what Chuck has, and what you two can do together is amazing. That's why they want the two of you, together, to run a new command under Special Operations Command, specifically to act as the front line to plan and direct joint operations between the services, as well as the liaison with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the intelligence bodies."

"Discussions have been going on between the Joint Chiefs, Special Operations Command, the DNI, the President and a host of other people at the top for some time now and they're close to getting everything signed off by Congress." At that Chuck turned to look at her "Why does it need to be signed off by Congress?"

"Because they're creating a new Rear Admiral position to run it, and because they're creating a new command that cross links a number of areas that are currently separated. The plan was always to make you the Commander Chuck, but with the evidence of what you accomplish when you two work together, as well as what Sarah can do on her own, they're now pushing to promote Sarah to an Air Force Colonel to be the Deputy Commander, directly in charge of the operations side of the group. They're also looking at processing more of the award recommendations that they've received for her over the past six years, because there have been more than a few."

"There are other parts to this as well, Ellie is to be promoted to a Navy Captain to run the Information Dominance side of the group, Colonel Casey and Bry are both to be promoted to full Colonels in the Marines and Army to direct operations, and we'll need to bring in others to direct operations and also for the Information Domination side, but you two are key for this operation."

She looked at the two of them. "So, does this sound like something you're interested in taking on?" Chuck and Sarah looked at each other and then Sarah looked at her and said "Yes."

Aunt D nodded. "Good, so Sarah, do you think you could you show me around your new place while Chuck finishes putting that case together?"

Sarah said "No problem", leaning forward to kiss Chuck before hopping off the desk and leading the way. She led her through to the master bedroom first, and when she saw the bed, Aunt D said "Oh, no".

That got a grin as Sarah said "We wondered about that as well, and about these" she led Aunt D into the ensuite to show her the decadently large tub and shower, but gushed over how perfect the mirrors, lighting and makeup facilities were for getting ready. Aunt D agreed with what she was saying, but smiled to herself at the sight of Sarah Walker, the Ice Queen, getting all girly like this, that was a sight she never thought she'd see.

Sarah showed her the other bedrooms, the games room and kitchen and then took her down to show her some of the features of the living area. Roan and Josie were relaxing down in the living room, and Roan held up his Martini, asking whether they'd like one. They said "no thanks" to the drink, so Josie asked if they'd like a coffee instead and when they said "yes please" she headed for the kitchen and the full sized espresso machine there. Like many college students, she'd worked in a lot of coffee shops and was a quite capable barista.

When she saw the piano, Aunt D just gave Roan a "Really?" look, but Sarah said that Chuck loved it, she hadn't known that he could play. Aunt D nodded, saying that he was always able to turn his hand to just about anything and she was sure that many things would come out over their time together.

Sarah looked at Roan and grinned as she said "Oh, I've been finding things out already, like the fact that Roan taught him how to handle women when he was ten."

"WHAT?" "What the hell did you do Roan?"

He put his hands up to placate them and explained "Charles called me and he was upset and confused, because he didn't know how to handle what he was feeling or what to do and he didn't have anyone else to talk to about it. So, I just gave him some advice about how to talk to girls and treat them, and given that Charles always had the reputation of being a perfect gentleman, even through his rather promiscuous phase, I don't believe that the advice I gave him was wrong."

Sarah nodded and said. "That's true, I've talked to the girls' mothers and more than a few others from back then, and they all still love him for what a good friend and gentleman he's always been, so Roan certainly didn't steer him wrong, even if it was a shock to hear that my husband had been trained by the seduction master himself back when he was ten."

Aunt D hadn't stopped glaring at Roan, but some of the heat had gone out of the look she was giving him after hearing that.

When Josie brought their coffees over, they thanked her and they all sat down to talk about something else. Aunt D brought up the fact that when they started Piranha Security & Technology, she was thinking that that would be a good time to bring Carina and Mei-Ling back over to be integrated into the group, and she was hoping that Josephine could join as well.

Sarah nodded "That sounds good, and while Zondra's here, I wanted to talk to her about joining us as well, she's in the same league as us, and I want to get her the hell away from the CIA."

Aunt D and Roan both snorted at what she said, so she looked at them, asking "What?"

Roan stepped in with "My dear, while I have no doubt that Zondra is very good, I SERIOUSLY doubt that she's in the same league as YOU."

Aunt D nodded at that and Sarah looked like she was going to argue the point, but then she gave up and shrugged.

Aunt D looked thoughtful as she said. "With regard to that other matter I mentioned, when it comes about, I'd like to get Bry out of the CIA and fitted into the team as well, so outside parties can't interfere with our operations." Sarah nodded at that.

They talked for a while longer and then headed out into the roof garden to show Aunt D around there, the Jacuzzi and the changing room got Roan more looks from her, but she was as impressed with it, with the whole Penthouse, as Chuck and Sarah had been.

Chuck found them out there when he'd finished putting the case together, and they talked as they walked around out there. They all went down to B2 to see how the operations centre had been set up, and then came back up to do a tour of the PS&T offices before they went to their car to head off to the airport

Sarah and Chuck had been interested to look through their adjoining offices (Sarah Carmichael, Chief Executive Officer and Charles Carmichael, Chief Technology Officer), as well as having look in Ellie's (Eleanor Charlemagne, Chief Operating Officer) and Casey's (John Casey, Chief Security Officer).

They'd also had a brief discussion about what was going to happen when they transitioned from CCE to PS&T, the CCE shop was going to be destroyed in an explosion and they were all going to disappear, then Ellie was going to go into "witness protection" a bit later and she'd disappear as well.

Afterwards, they'd resurface as Charles and Sarah Carmichael and Eleanor Charlemagne in PS&T, though Casey, Jeff and Anna weren't changing their names as they weren't as visible as the others. If anyone recognised them, they'd go with the witness protection line and say that their names were changed after the shop was blown up.

Sarah and Chuck had a few days to themselves after that, only broken by Zondra coming by before she headed off to work an assignment with Roan so that they could make a pitch to her about joining them. Zondra was all for the idea, so they set things in motion to get her out of the CIA and added to the Intersect team by the time that PS&T started operating.

Other than that, they did some work on things that were time sensitive, but for a couple of weeks they hardly saw anyone else. The girls came over one night (and they LOVED the place, they were already begging to be allowed to have parties there), but the rest of the group tried to give them space so that they could have time to themselves as a couple.

When the other apartments were done, they put the plans into play to wipe out CCE and move everyone into Quixote House, and PS&T. Casey actually enjoyed planning and executing the destruction of the CCE shop, as he hadn't had a chance to blow anything up in a while.

Another thing that they'd been waiting on was the sign off of the case to split the Intersect team away from the direct control of the NSA (and CIA, though they were told to keep their hands off by the DNI), but that was through now, so while nominally under the NSA, which meant that they were all NSA agents now, they only reported to the DNI and President. The NSA and CIA could only request assistance from the Intersect team, they couldn't order them to do anything directly.

The way the living arrangements panned out wasn't what they'd expected though, they'd catered for enough apartments for everybody, but from the start, Ellie had decided to share with Josie, Carina was sharing with Zondra, Mei-Ling was sharing with Anna, and Casey was sharing with Jeff, that meant that level four was still empty.

While they got rid of Jeff and Anna's apartments and let Sarah's apartment go, they hung onto Casa Bartek and Casey's place so that they could be used for covers in operations, though most of the equipment was removed.

* * *

It didn't take long before they had a need for those cover facilities, because Chuck flashed on the names of some Russian crime figures that were coming into L.A. and they were ordered to find out what they were doing there. When they looked into it, Casey got a nasty shock, as one of the names that Chuck pulled up that was associated with the group was a former lover of his, a civilian named Ilsa Trinchina, and she was someone who he was certain had died in an explosion in Chechnya four years ago.

Casey reacted badly when Chuck brought it up, and when they looked into it, it appeared that Isla had, indeed died in Chechnya in 2004, and someone had taken her details to create a new identity, so they put it down to being an unfortunate incident.

When they went in to infiltrate the private function that the Russians were holding to find out what they were up to, though, Casey got another nasty shock, and so did Chuck and Sarah, because Ilsa WAS there, alive. When Chuck flashed on her face and told Sarah, Sarah immediately called to cancel the operation to get them out of there before there was a scene, but Casey had thought that they were in danger and came to get them out, so he ran straight into Ilsa.

When she saw him, Ilsa was telling him that she'd had no idea who she was when she woke up in a hospital in Grzny weeks after the explosion, and it had taken her months to get much of her memories back. By that time he was long gone and she couldn't find him.

Just at that moment, though, a man clambered up onto the bar with a microphone to make a (rather drunken) announcement. Chuck got a flash on him and told Sarah about him, he was Victor Federov, a Russian Oligarch who had his fingers in everything, crime, government, arms dealing, whatever was going, he was running it. As there wasn't anyone else there at anything like his level, it was fairly obvious that he was the reason who they were all there.

It was when Federov slurred out "I'd like to introduce you to the woman who make me happiest man on earth by becoming my wife, Ilsa Trinchina!" that everything fell apart. Ilsa made sure she had a smile plastered across her face before she turned and went to Federov to embrace him, and Chuck and Sarah grabbed the stunned Casey and hustled him out of there before anything could happen.

Casey had fallen into a state of depression after seeing Ilsa go to Federov, so Sarah and Carina (as the more experienced agents) had to go and set up all the surveillance on the Russians. Chuck tried to spend time with Casey to help him get over this, but Casey was stuck on the idea that Ilsa obviously wasn't the woman he thought she was if she was marrying a character like Federov.

Chuck was trying to make him feel better and pointed out that there was a good chance that Ilsa had no idea about who Federov really was, and as they'd both been drinking fairly heavily throughout the "therapy" session, they decided to go down to the hotel to tell Ilsa about Federov before she made a horrible mistake.

When they got there, Casey saw Ilsa in the bar and went to talk to her, while Chuck went to the room where Sarah and Carina had set up the surveillance gear to explain what was happening, because he was starting to sober up a little and think that what they were doing was probably stupid.

Sarah was in the room, and when he told her what was going on, the only reason that she didn't go ballistic was that it was Chuck. She immediately checked the cameras for the bar, but Casey and Ilsa weren't there. When she saw that she started frantically checking all the other cameras, and called Carina to get the hell out of Ilsa and Federov's room, because Ilsa was taking Casey there. Carina had a smirk on her face, though, as she shook her head and held something up to the camera, it was Ilsa's DGSE credentials that she explained that she'd found in a secret compartment in Ilsa's bag.

Sarah's response was "Shit! OK, they'll be there in three, two, one, now" at "now" the door was unlocked with the key card and the door opened. When Ilsa saw her there she pushed Casey out of the way and went for a gun in her purse, but stopped when Carina pointed her pistol at her and said "I think it's time for a talk, Agent Trinchina" while holding up her NSA credentials.

Casey looked at Ilsa in disbelief and said "You're an agent?" Ilsa nodded, saying that that was what she was bringing him back there to tell him, she was an agent of the French DGSE and she was working to bring Federov down, so it was too dangerous for him to be anywhere near her, he had to leave now and forget about her.

That just got a belligerent glare from Casey "Why didn't you tell me?", at which Carina cut in and said "That's the pot calling the kettle black isn't it Casey? You didn't tell her that you're one, did you? Why should she tell you?"

Ilsa slumped in resignation at that. "Of course you're an agent, how could I have missed it before?"

Just then Chuck picked up Federov entering the hotel and pointed it out to Sarah. She told Carina to get Casey out of there because Federov was coming, so Carina gave Ilsa back her DGSE credentials and grabbed Casey. Ilsa asked where she could find them to discuss this and Carina gave her the address of Casey's house, and then hustled him out.

While they were waiting for Carina and Casey to arrive, Sarah fixed Chuck with a look that he'd rather not see directed at him by her and told him "This isn't over!" When Carina got there with Casey, Sarah got her to take over the surveillance and took Chuck and Casey back to Quixote House.

Aunt D was less inclined to hold off ranting at Chuck and Casey than Sarah was when they reported to her what had happened, but once she'd gotten it off her chest, she told them to go and get set up at Casey's and wait for Ilsa, she'd talk to them via a video conference when Ilsa was there.

When they got to Casey's, they cleaned the place up and Sarah supplied the two miscreants with food and coffee to settle them down after she shot them up with something to dissipate the alcohol in their systems. After that, she told Casey to wait in the living room and took Chuck off to the office to have the discussion she'd been planning to have with him since he turned up at the hotel.

Chuck just sat there and took it, because now he'd sobered up he knew full well how stupid what they'd done, what he'd done, was. Eventually Sarah got it out of her system and they made up before going back to wait with Casey. She didn't need to tell Casey how monumentally stupid he'd been, because from his face he was quite aware of that (so was Chuck, but she'd been worried about him and that was what she was taking out on him), so she just gave Casey a pitying, disappointed look to twist the knife a little.

Ilsa turned up in the morning, and after General Beckman read her the riot act about operating on American soil without clearing it with them first, they settled down and worked out all the details for the team to support her taking down Federov and all his minions as quickly and efficiently as possible.

They also discussed who'd get Federov and the others, the General reluctantly agreed to let the DGSE have Federov because they had a bigger case to try him on, but she was taking a number of the other key figures because the USA had strong cases against them.

That night, all the players were supposed to be at the pre-wedding dinner, so they decided to take them there. The strike teams were given pictures of all the key players, the ones who had to be taken alive so that they could be questioned and taken to court, but they were given approval to meet resistance with deadly force if others started a gun battle. Ilsa was included on all the "must capture alive" lists to ensure that she got out of there in one piece.

When the time came, it was relatively easy, when faced with an overwhelming force, most of them surrendered quickly, one group broke out and tried to run for it, but the two "capture alive" targets in that group were tranqed and then the others were taken out quickly and efficiently when they refused to surrender.

The day that Ilsa left with Federov and the other prisoners that she was allowed to take was bitter-sweet for Casey, on one hand she was leaving again, and he didn't know when he'd see her again. On the other hand, though, they'd both come clean about who they were, they'd confirmed that they still had feelings for one another, and they'd set up everything so that they could ensure that they could keep in touch.

They could have a future yet if they were prepared to wait and put the requisite effort into it, and that was a good thing.


	16. Admiral Mowgli

**Vladimir, re cuddle time, yes, the girls would be about thirteen at that point, I guess I was framing that on Chuck's warm, loving personality and the girls picking up a lot of that from him, because that would make a lot of hugging and cuddling still a common thing IMHO. There's also the fact that they only saw him about once a month around that period so I'd think they'd be trying to make the most of every chance to be close to him. FWIW**

 **This chapter is largely setting things up for the direction the story's taking.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

* * *

Once the rest of the crew had settled into Quixote House, they started working to get Piranha Security & Technology established as a business. To seed the business and get it going, Aunt D fed them a string of government contracts, so the team got straight into those contracts to start building a reputation for PS&T.

Given that they had a lot more free accommodation than they'd expected available in Quixote House, Chuck sat Sarah down and proposed that they move Emma and Molly into the building. They'd talked about how Sarah didn't see them anywhere near as much as she'd like, for fear of leading the CIA or others to them, and Chuck knew how much that upset her, so this seemed to be the best option.

Quixote House was a secure facility, a VERY secure facility, and the CIA had no idea where Sarah was now, so having Emma and Molly live in the building would mean that they were safe, and that Sarah could see them as much as she liked, in Chuck's eyes it was nothing but a win/win scenario.

Sarah didn't take much convincing, and neither did Emma when they raised it with her, so they got her to bring Molly over to Quixote House. When they were pulling into the imposing building, Molly was asking Emma where they were and what they were doing here? Emma just smiled at her and told her it was a surprise!

Molly's next surprise (Emma's too, actually) was when they got out of the car in the parking area and walked up to the elevator. As they got there, the doors opened and a screen lit up in the back of the elevator to show Sarah smiling at them and saying "Hi! Come on in, I'll see when you get up here."

She was standing right in front of them when the doors opened in the Penthouse, and Molly ran into her arms. Chuck stepped up to give Emma a hug and a kiss on the cheek while Sarah was occupied with Molly, and he smiled as he watched Emma's eyes grow wider, and wider, as she took in the place she was standing in.

Once she'd greeted Molly, Sarah straightened from her crouch and rushed to Emma to wrap her in a bone crushing hug that could have rivalled one of Ellie's, until Chuck had to remind her to let her mother breath, so she released her to step back, blushing, and turned to bury her face in Chuck's shoulder to hide her embarrassment. It didn't help that Chuck was grinning like the Cheshire Cat, but Emma was rubbing her back, saying "It's fine Honey, it's fine."

When Sarah was ready to face them again, they introduced Ellie (my sister) and Josie to Emma and Molly. Emma looked confused when Josie was gushing about how much her mother had talked about her, until Chuck told her "Josie is Diane's daughter", at which she had a closer look and nodded with a smile, saying that she could see her mother in her.

After that, Ellie and Josie took Molly out to play in the "yard", while Sarah and Chuck took Emma down to show her the apartments on level four. Emma loved the apartments, but she was getting upset and they couldn't work out why, until she said "Aren't there any small apartments here? I was hoping that I could sell the house to get one of the apartments here, but there's no way that I can afford any of these!"

Chuck laughed as he pulled her into a hug, saying "I'm sorry Emma, I thought you knew, we own the whole building and everything in it, the only thing you need to do is pick the one you like and we'll fix it up the way you want so you can move in."

Emma stared at both of them. "You own this entire building?" Sarah smiled and nodded. "How could you possibly have enough money to buy something like this?"

Chuck smiled as he said "Well we picked it up for a song from what was essentially a foreclosed estate after the market crashed, and then we put a few million into redoing it the way we wanted it."

Emma took a step back, looking at them. "I thought you ran a small tech business, that's what you told me, but now you're talking about spending a few million as if it was nothing….oh, my, god, that mansion upstairs, that's YOUR place?"

Sarah stepped up to take her hands "Mom, calm down, yes, Chuck downplays the business, but in his defence, when he told you about it, it was a smaller business, we've changed that into a bigger, more upscale business here."

"To be honest, he also downplayed what he spent doing up this building, it was more like several million than a few, but he got a big, like over ten million big, settlement cheque out of a bad lawsuit against his company, and he invested it well when everything was going crazy so that he more than doubled it, so he's, we've (she amended when he went to correct her) got the money to do what we want now."

"Yes, the Penthouse upstairs is our home, we gave Roan Montgomery a free hand to create it to make a statement and it's a lot more than we were expecting, but we love it."

She looked at Chuck before continuing. "What it comes down to is that we want you here, so you'll be safe and we can see you all the time, and all we need from you is a yes, will you say yes, please? And before you ask, this was Chuck's idea, he wants you here as much as I do."

Emma looked from to the other with tears in her eyes, finally saying "Yes?" The hug that Sarah gave her wasn't quite as extreme as the one she'd given her upstairs, but it still came close to choking the breath out of her before she let her go.

Chuck beamed at her, saying "Great! Now, which one do you want?" "I, I don't know?"

He held his hand out to her and when she took it, led her down the hall. As they walked he was telling her. "Personally, this one would be my choice, the views are the nicest and it's under the bedroom areas of the penthouse, so you'd get less noise if there's a party going on upstairs."

When Emma agreed that she loved the view, they went through the apartment, asking her what she'd like changed. There wasn't anything she didn't like, but she did say that the second and third bedrooms were way too big and fancy for a little girl, and she'd never need a fancy computer setup like what was in the workroom (all the apartments had a workroom off the master bedroom with good sized wardrobes and ensuites, which was set up for the computer systems and gym equipment), so if the computer desk was cleared out and the room was set up for Molly, that would be perfect.

The only quibble that Chuck had with that was removing the primary computing facility from her apartment, as she may need it down the track. (He didn't want to push the point at the moment, but his mother, Aunt D and Uncle Bry had all said that Emma had been the best analyst and planner that they'd ever seen, back in the day, so later on he'd like to talk to her about possibly taking that role up again for the Operations Command team that Aunt D had told them about.)

Emma thought about that, and then led them back into the master bedroom, to the walk in wardrobe. "I'll never use more than half of this hanging space, so you could put a small computer desk in here and wire it up for the computer."

Chuck nodded, mapping things out in his head before standing at a spot next to the door. "What about here? It won't be in the way and all you need to do to see the view outside is to turn your head a little?"

He moved out of the way so that Emma could step into the position where he was. Emma looked out as he'd said, went through the motions of using a computer and then nodded at him, "Yes, that would be nice Chuck."

He nodded again, saying "The contractors are still finishing up details downstairs, and the guys we need for this just finished what they were doing, so they can do the changes you want here inside a day or so."

Emma looked at him. "How can you know that Chuck?"

He looked confused for a moment and then apologised. "Sorry Emma, I forgot that you don't have the near perfect recall that we do, well that sounded stupid, but you know what I mean?"

"Anyway, I check their ongoing progress reports quite often and it's all up here (tapping his head), so I know that the particular contractors that we want to do the work here have just finished the last thing they were working on, and they're free to start on this straight away, actually, why don't we get this sorted out now?"

He pulled out his phone and called the head contractor of the relevant team, asking him to come up to the apartment to organise the work order.

Five minutes later, the man came in and they showed him what they wanted done. When he asked when they wanted this done, Chuck said "As soon as possible" and he nodded, saying that the men he needed were free now and he'd get them up to get started straight away.

Sarah had to smile at the slightly dazed look on her mother's face as she led her upstairs, like Ellie, her new husband could be like a force of nature sometimes and she understood that that could take a bit of getting used to, but they were going to have her and Molly right here soon, and that was great!

When Emma had composed herself, they went out to the roof garden where Molly was still running Ellie and Josie ragged. When she saw Emma, Molly squealed and came barrelling over to her. Emma smiled down at her as she gave her a hug and asked if she liked it here?

Molly nodded enthusiastically, so Emma asked "How would you like to live here Molly?"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"

"I guess I can take that as a yes, then?"

Molly jumped up and down as she nodded.

Emma knelt down to look her in the eye "Well that's good, because we are going to be living here, just downstairs in fact."

Molly threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around Emma's neck, while Emma smiled up at the sight of Sarah's happy tears and she stood watching them, with Chuck standing behind her with his arms around her.

* * *

A while after Emma and Molly left, though, Sarah's world got turned upside down, because her father called her. She knew that he should have been out of prison for about six months now, but she hadn't heard from him in over a year (she was still partnered with Bryce Larkin at the time actually), because the last time he'd called he was demanding that she do something for him and when she said that she couldn't he'd started going on about how ungrateful she was after all he'd done for her.

When he tried to go there she'd gone off and reminded him exactly WHAT he'd done for her and how much she should owe him for that. He'd hung up on her before she was halfway through and she hadn't heard from him since, until now.

When Chuck saw the expression on her face he gently took the phone from her hand and set it to speaker mode. When he heard her father asking "Are you still there Darlin'?", his eyes widened as he was hit with the mother of all flashes of information, but Sarah didn't see it, as she was looking down as she reached over to grasp his hand and answered her father.

"Yes, I'm still here Dad, I was just surprised to hear from you, our last phone call didn't go too well."

"Yeah, I think we said some things that we shouldn't have."

"Why are you calling me Dad?"

"Well, I ran into an old buddy, Mickey Tong, you remember him, and he saw you out with a group of women in L.A. a while ago. He said you looked different, but he'd never mistake you, you know what a soft spot Mickey always had for you."

"You still haven't said why you're calling Dad."

"Well I'm in L.A. and I was hoping that if you're still here I could see you?"

Sarah didn't get out more than "I don't" before Chuck grabbed her hand, hard, and was gesturing at the phone to tell her to say yes. "Yeah, OK, where do you want to see me?"

"How about dinner tomorrow night, at my hotel?"

"OK, but I want to bring my boyfriend to meet you."

"Boyfriend? What's this, some schnook that you're running a game on?"

"No, it's the guy I've been seeing for a while."

"I don't know Darlin', I really only wanted to talk to you."

"If you want to see me, you'll meet him, it's both of us or not at all!"

Chuck was trying to stop her saying that, but the look she shot him told him that he'd drop it if he knew what was good for him.

"OK, if I have to meet some schnook to see you, I will."

"When and where Dad?"

"Seven o'clock at the Marriot."

"OK, we'll see you then, but I've got to run, bye."

"Bye Darlin', see you tomorrow."

She made sure the call was finished and then looked at Chuck. "Do you want to tell me why you're making us have dinner with my father tomorrow night?"

"OK, you know how you've always said that Carina and Zondra were like sisters to you?"

"Yeah?"

"Well there's a good reason for that, they are!"

Sarah just stared at him as if he'd lost it, so he went on.

"When I heard his voice, I got a flash on it, because he's in the intersect, but the flashes just kept coming because when I saw the aliases he was using, the Intersect cross referenced other records of other names that I'd flashed on, specifically, birth certificates, more specifically, Carina's and Zondra's."

"I'm sorry, but I thought that you guys would want to know for sure, so that's why I pushed you to see him, so we can get what we need to do DNA tests while we know where he is."

Sarah drew a breath, almost whispering as she said "Yeah, you're right, I at least would want to know, Shit!"

Chuck gently took her hand "There's more, the flashes showed me something else as well."

Sarah didn't want to ask but she had to "What?"

"Thirty five years ago, there was a CIA agent who went AWOL because he decided that he wasn't getting the respect he felt he deserved, they looked for him for a little while before they gave up because he wasn't worth the cost or effort, Agent Joe Blake disappeared, and later became the conman you currently know as Jack Burton."

Sarah came over to sit in his lap and clung to him for a while, and then asked him if he could get all this up on screen? He said he'd do his best, and while he was doing that, she went down to the office to get Carina and Zondra and bring them back.

By the time they returned, Chuck had just about everything up, the packages with all the files relating to Sarah, Carina and Zondra that had been removed from the CIA's and DEA's systems had provided their birth certificates, and Graham's archived files at the CIA had an extensive file on Joe Blake and everyone he'd become after he went AWOL, it must have been this file that had provided the sound clips that he'd flashed on, because there was no other record of Joe post CIA that could be in the Intersect.

Chuck went to leave, but Sarah put her hand on his arm and Carina and Zondra asked him to stay and explain this to them, so he did. He brought up the aliases and the records of when and where they were used, and cross referenced them to their birth certificates, he talked about the similarities between their capabilities that they'd discussed back when they were in the CAT Squad, and brought up the reports of Joe Blake, which were referencing very similar things. Sarah also talked about all the other things her, their, father did and how they fitted into this.

They all agreed that the links that Chuck had pulled out of the Intersect appeared to be correct, and that they wanted to be certain, so Chuck called Ellie and asked her to come up. When she walked in she quickly took in all the highlighted links and came to the obvious conclusion, blurting out "That bastard!" Sarah grimaced and said "Yeah" before going on. "Ellie, can you tell us what samples we need to do a solid DNA test, and show us how to get them?"

Ellie nodded, "Yes, I can, but wouldn't it be better for someone else to get the samples from him so he doesn't know that you're behind it just yet?"

The three sisters looked at each other and nodded, that was a better idea as it would let them have a talk to him afterwards, Chuck grabbed his phone and hit speed dial. "Casey, you'd be up for a good mugging, wouldn't you? OK, great, can you meet Ellie on B2 in ten minutes? Thanks."

When he hung up he said "If one or all of you go down to get your samples taken by Ellie, she can show Casey how to take them, so we can track down your father and he can knock out or tranq him long enough to take the samples needed, then if he roughs him up a little so it looks like a mugging, he'll never know what happened."

They all grinned, they liked that idea, so Sarah kissed Chuck and they all headed downstairs. While they were downstairs, Chuck traced the phone that had called Sarah, and he met Casey downstairs with his bike gear. A couple of bikes could get around downtown easier than a car could and they could play on the menace to society image of bikers, they'd had it used against them often enough, but it could work for them here.

Chuck had his phone mounted on the bars of his bike and tracked Jack's phone down easily enough. As expected, when they screeched to a halt and Casey shouted "Burton!", he ran, straight down an alley. Casey's boot to his back when he chased him down sent him flying and knocked him out briefly, which made it simple to take the samples, grab what cash was in his wallet and take off without him knowing who it was, he was coming around as Casey threw the wallet back at him but not enough to ID him.

Ellie took all the samples down to one of the best labs and paying a premium fee plus the promise of a hot date got her the assurance that she'd have the preliminary results within twelve hours, and they should be about 90% sure of confirming shared paternity with the preliminary results.

By lunch time the next day, Ellie got her response, it was at least 90% certain that the male subject was the father of the three female subjects, so it was agreed that Carina, Zondra and Casey would also be at the restaurant, listening in and waiting for the chance to confront Jack about the paternity issue.

Casey was there as protection because none of the three girls were being allowed to take any weapons at all in case they gave in to the temptation to do something to him, and Chuck wasn't comfortable about his ability to protect all three while trying to stop one or more of them from killing him with their bare hands.

As bad as her lot had been, Sarah had gotten the best deal out of Jack, but that was only because Emma was brilliant at planning and managing his cons, so she was the goose who laid the golden egg for him. He'd run out on both Carina and Zondra's mothers when they were pregnant, and what happened to them as a result of that definitely justified whatever they might want to do to him, but they needed to keep him alive long enough to talk if they were going to get answers from him, hence the ban on weapons.

When she got ready for dinner, Sarah was as stunning as ever, even though she hadn't put much effort into it. They both made sure that the hidden microphones they were wearing were working properly, and then they headed down to the Marriot.

Jack looked a little worse for wear, but when Sarah asked him what happened, while he said he got mugged, everything he said about what actually happened was a lie. Sarah met Chuck's eye and reached over to hold his hand under the table, and the way she was gripping his hand made her aggravation quite clear.

Jack spent most of the meal trying to convince Chuck, or maybe both of them, of what a wonderful childhood Katie had (she'd told him that she was using the name Katie O'Connell again), and it wasn't until desert that he started to get around to what he was really there for, he wanted to get Katie to convince Chuck to stake him in his next con, and more after that if he could get away with it.

Chuck could see that Sarah was furious and was about to go off, so he got her attention by kissing her hand and pulling her in for a soft, slow kiss before casually turning to her father and saying.

"You know it really is lazy and stupid to stick to the same initials most of the time Joe, it's no wonder that you were so easy to track down when someone could be bothered."

"What are you talking about Schnook? Darlin' you better get rid of this one, he's obviously a headcase."

"Joe Blake, Johnny Benson, Joe Barrett, Jack Burton, you really couldn't have made it much more obvious if you'd worn a sign."

"Now, purely to save her from having any regrets later, I won't let Katie kill you now, because as much of a loathsome bottom feeding scumbag as you are, you're still her father."

"I, on the other hand, won't have any regrets about killing you slowly and painfully if you EVER try to contact her or see her again, or send anyone after her, have you got that Joe?"

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

"Oh I'm the guy who has a least a couple of hundred times the rather pitiful kill count you had in your brief CIA career, Joe, so I wouldn't take that tone with me if I was you!"

"Now I asked you if you understand what I told you will happen if you ever come near her again, do you?"

When Jack looked into his eyes, what he saw made him go cold, as he'd seen eyes like that before, and he'd seen what the men behind them did, so he stammered out "Yes, yes I understand!", but when he tried to get up and run away Chuck stopped him, saying "Oh no, stay, I've got some people here who want to meet you."

At their cue, Carina, Zondra and Casey got up and walked over to the table, Carina stood behind Sarah and put her hands on her shoulders. Sarah looked up with a wan smile and squeezed her hand.

Chuck made the introductions "These two ladies are also your daughters, but you wouldn't know that because you ran off when their mothers were pregnant, taking all their money with you."

"Casey, well you met him yesterday, or at least you met his boot, you see we had to get some samples from you to confirm our suspicions. We COULD have just asked you, but we didn't think that you'd agree, and besides, it was more fun this way, wasn't it Casey?" Casey gave a satisfied grunt.

"So, who did you think we were that you ran away like that, Joe?"

When he didn't get a response, a steak knife was suddenly driven through the table between the fingers of Jack's right hand. "I asked you a question Joe!"

Jack was franticly checking to make sure he still had all his fingers.

"I, I borrowed some money to stake me for a con but it fell through, and now they're looking for me to get their money back!"

"Well it sounds like it's a good thing we got here when we did then, otherwise we'd have had to chase you, too."

"Now Joe, your daughters have some questions for you, and I suggest that you answer them, because if you don't, I could get angry."

He leaned forward "Don't make me angry Joe, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Sarah, Carina and Zondra tried to get answers out of Jack, but as he hadn't cared enough to bother keeping track of anyone (the only reason he knew how to find Sarah was that she'd contacted him while he was in prison), he didn't have satisfactory answers to anything they asked him, and eventually they gave up.

When they'd had enough, Chuck leaned forward to quietly say "Joe, just in case you're thinking of going to the authorities, you should know that the CIA still has an outstanding termination order on Joe Blake to tidy up their loose ends, and we've cross linked every name that we've found for you to ALL of your police records, so as soon as you get involved with the authorities, anywhere, the CIA will find out about you. I'd suggest that you avoid doing anything that may bring you to the authorities' attention from now on."

With that he and Sarah stood and they walked off, with Sarah clutching Chuck's arm tightly and Zondra doing the same thing to Casey behind them.

Before she left, though, Carina leaned down to whisper harshly in Jack's ear. "Keep an eye out Daddy, because one day I may give in to the urge to get some guys to do to you what those guys that came along after you left us did to me when I was a girl. Let's see if you like it more than I did!"

With that she turned and strode off, leaving him white as a ghost and quaking in his boots. Chuck and Sarah were waiting for her and she just went straight into Chuck's arms. When she'd recovered enough to walk, they left, with Chuck holding her, as well as holding onto Sarah's hand.

In the car heading back to Quixote House, Carina said from the back "That was a nice touch, with that bluff about his police records Chuck."

His eyes didn't leave the road as he said "It wasn't a bluff." Sarah turned to look at him "When did you do that?"

"Last night, after the three of you told me what happened to you because of him."

He glanced at her, "I can wipe that out if you want? I'm sorry, I know I should have asked first but I just reacted." Sarah glanced at Carina and Zondra for confirmation before shaking her head as she reached over to take his hand and say "No, leave it, I love the idea that his actions will come back on him now, thanks."

The incident with Jack put a bit of a damper on their excitement about Emma and Molly moving in, but once they'd explained it to her, she rejected their apologies and did what she could to help all three of them deal with it. Carina and Zondra found that they quite liked effectively being adopted by Emma the way she did, because neither of them had had a mother for a long time, especially Carina, and it felt good.

* * *

They tried to keep themselves busy to keep their minds off those things, and there was certainly no difficulty finding enough to keep them busy, with their PS&T engagements ramping up, along with the DCS team and Intersect team work. So, on that front at least, it was mission accomplished.

About a month after Jack Burton had imposed himself on their lives, Aunt D came back to tell them that everything had been signed off for the new command. Chuck, Sarah and Ellie had been talking between themselves and to the others about this and they knew what they wanted done for the core of the team, so they gave all this to Aunt D to get it sorted out.

The powers that be had already flagged Sarah as going to a USAF Colonel, Ellie going to a USN Captain, Casey to USMC Colonel and Bry to USA Colonel for their roles, so Chuck and Sarah just laid out the next layer for them. Carina and Zondra were also well known and respected by many of the special ops teams, so the proposal was that they both be promoted to USN Commanders to direct operations along with Chuck, Sarah, Casey and Bry.

Chuck did have an unusual requirement for the personnel who would make up most of the office support and logistics team. At the wedding he'd talked to some of the special ops guys and he knew that there were a number of SEAL, Special Forces and Marine Recon guys who were currently trying to fight being pensioned off due to disabilities from combat injuries that had taken them off active duty (most of them were amputees).

He'd done operations with most of these guys, and between them they had well over a hundred years of special ops combat experience under all conditions. That was the primary justification for his proposal, yes, he wanted them to give them a chance to hold their heads high as they continued to serve, but their experience was a solid argument that showed that they could be of great assistance to the planning operations.

For the Information Dominance side, Jeff and Anna were to be promoted to USN Commanders (that was only one step for Jeff), while Emma would be commissioned as a USN Commander as well (Chuck had talked it over with Sarah and then they'd both sat down with Emma to discuss it. She worked through a few things with them and confirmed that she still had it, AND that she enjoyed working on issues like this, so she was in). Chuck and Ellie had also nutted out the qualities required for the rest of the Information Dominance team and Chuck passed that along, too.

The only surprises in what they'd sent up was Emma (but when Aunt D thought about what Emma had been like, she agreed that it was a sensible move), and Chuck's proposal for the support staff, but she and the others could see the benefits that Chuck laid out in that, too, so all of his requirements were progressed as he'd specified.

While Aunt D and the committees were processing the personnel issues, they got the contractors back in to fit out level one for the Operations Command offices. The only active military facility in the Los Angeles area was the Los Angeles Air Force Base, and there wasn't sufficient free space in any of the secure areas of the L.A. AFB for what they needed, so it was a logical argument to set up the offices in an approved secure building, Quixote House.

There was an unusual requirement given to them all leading up to the day that they had to go to D.C. for the ceremonies. They all had to supply tailored dress uniform jackets so that they could be prepared for the official photos. Chuck, for one, wasn't too impressed when he saw what was behind this requirement on the day.

On the day, the group present was kept relatively small for two reasons, the first being to keep the nature of what was being done under wraps, and the second because it was being done in the Oval Office. Josie, Mei-Ling and Molly had come with them, but they stayed in the reception room with Chuck's parents, Roan and Leslie while the ceremony was going on (at least Josie had a chance to catch up with her dad).

The people present were mostly the brass and dignitaries who had been involved in creating this, plus the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Air Force, and the National Security Advisor. They ran through the steps relatively quickly, doing the promotions and Emma's commissioning first, and then the awards. Sarah, Carina and Zondra were retroactively awarded the medals that they'd been recommended for by the special ops teams when they did operations with them over the years, and Chuck and Ellie were both awarded the Presidential medal of Freedom for their contributions over the past fourteen years, as well as a number of National Intelligence and Defense Joint Service medals.

Once all that was done, they brought out the uniform jackets that they'd prepared with the appropriate rank insignia and all awards on display, and at first Chuck refused to wear his for the photos. This was because as well as a ridiculous amount of full sized medals (with all the appropriate stars and oak leaf clusters on the suspension ribbons to show multiple awards), and the other ribbons with stars and oak leaf clusters, they'd included what had to be the absolute maximum allowable number of badges on display for all his units and qualifications, he had the Command Ashore badge, Aviator/Pilot badges, Parachutist badges (with combat jump devices), Diver badges, the SEAL insignia, Information Dominance insignia and others, it looked like something some African dictator would wear.

If he hadn't been so pissed off, the bemused faces on the politicians and half of the military brass (who couldn't understand what the issue was) would have been amusing, but it took Sarah, Ellie, Casey, Bry and Aunt D a few minutes to talk him down so that he'd give in. When he did give in and put the jacket on, he was inducted into the Commander role for the Operations Command group under Special Operations Command, Sarah was formally assigned the Deputy Commander role and command of the Operations team, Ellie was assigned the command of the Information Dominance team and they all had to have additional presentations for their formal liaison roles with the Joint Chiefs, Cyber Command, the DIA, the NSA and the ODNI, which of course meant additional badges.

Once all the presentations were done (with individual photo ops), they had to go through all the group photos, Chuck with Sarah and Ellie (as the directors of the Operations and Info Dominance elements of the group), Chuck and Sarah with Casey, Bry, Carina and Zondra (as the Operations side), Chuck with Ellie, Jeff, Anna and Emma (as the Info Dominance side), and all of them together, plus photos with their commanders for the various elements of their operations, photos with the President, Secretaries, the National Security Advisor, the Director of National Security etc.

There was one departure from traditional military requirements in all the photos, no names were displayed, as it had been agreed from the early phases of planning for this that both the special operations and the intelligence community aspects of this created issues with formally identifying any of the group.

So, as Chuck had been known as Mowgli, Casey had been known as Baloo, Bry had been known as Akela, along with Ellie sometimes being known as Raksha for the past twelve years or so in the special operations circles, and they'd extended that to Sarah being known as Shanti since she'd joined over a year ago, they'd extended that to include the rest of the core group.

They'd kept with the Jungle Book associations to identify the rest of them, too, so Zondra got Bagheera, Carina got Chil, Emma got Kaa, Jeff got Hathi and Anna got Rikki (short for Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, courtesy of Aunt D), and as Aunt D was associated with the group and attended meetings as well, she was tagged as Messua.

The connotations of that hadn't really sunk in until the Commander of Special Operations Command shook Chuck's hand and said "Congratulations Admiral Mowgli, good to have you on board." He actually had a reasonable sense of humour, so when Sarah couldn't help snorting at that he just raised his eyebrow at her and asked "Do you have a problem with that Colonel Shanti?" She schooled her expression and replied "No, Sir!", which got a trace of a smile from him.

After all the photo sessions were done, they retired to the reception area, and the rest of them followed Chuck's example of quickly shucking their newly adorned uniform jackets and covers so that they could settle down and talk over dinner. The only outsiders at the reception were the politicians, as they rest of them had known and worked with each other for years, and had been at Chuck and Sarah's wedding, so the conversation was fairly easy.

At the end of the dinner, they look their leave and the L.A. contingent went straight to Andrews to get aboard the C-37 that was taking them back to L.A. as, while it would have been nice to spend time catching up with the family, they had too much to do back home to be able to spare the time.


	17. Operations Command

**OK, I've gone back and made one change in the last couple of chapters, Sarah is now a USAF Colonel instead of a USN Captain, the thinking being that they should have someone from each of the services for an operation of this nature. FWIW (No, that wasn't meant to be a dig at you NN ;)**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

* * *

The day after they got back from the induction ceremonies was also the day they opened the Operations Command offices, so they had to make an appearance.

As soon as Chuck walked in the door "Admiral on Deck!" rang out, and everyone jumped to attention, he answered their salutes as he went through the office, and Sarah and Ellie (who'd walked in behind him) had to answer the follow up salutes they were getting as well.

When he got close to his office, he was saluted by Greg Roberts, an ex-SEAL Lieutenant Commander with "Admiral Mowgli, Sir!" Greg was one of the guys that he knew the best in the office, because he'd done more than a few operations with him over the years. He was also the senior officer on the support/logistics side. Chuck stopped beside him, looked at him and asked quietly. "Do you really think it's a good idea to screw with a flag officer who's also your Commanding Officer, Commander?" before going on to say "My office in ten if you please Commander, dismissed!" and walking on.

Just before he reached his office, he stopped to look at the pictures from the induction and award ceremonies (which was most of them) on the wall behind the USMC First Lieutenant (Josie) who was serving as the assistant and receptionist for him, Sarah and Ellie and said "In my office please Lieutenant!" as he passed her desk.

When she entered he motioned for her to close the door and once she'd done so he asked "Who's idea was it to put those pictures up?" she grimaced and said "It was Mom's".

Just then Sarah put her 2c worth in from the adjoining door to her office "You know she's got a point to a degree Chuck, we do need to fly our colours a bit".

Ellie went to have her say from the door into her office too, but Chuck just pointed a finger at her to stop her.

Looking back at Josie he said "I'll allow the group picture of all of us and our commanders to stay there, take the rest down." Sarah cut in again "Chuck, I really think we should have more of the pictures around the office."

Chuck looked at her, knowing that he was going to lose this battle, just like he always did. "OK, some can be around the office, but not THERE, and we WILL agree everything before it goes up."

Sarah smiled and came over to kiss him, gracious as ever in victory, Ellie smirked but held her tongue this time. Chuck looked at Josie, saying "Josie, everything but the group photo down, now, please." She nodded, said "Yes, sir." and left the office.

At that point Greg Roberts knocked on the door and he waved him in, Sarah and Ellie both went back into their offices to let them talk and he waved Greg into one of the comfortable seats in front of his desk.

When he was seated, Chuck pointed a finger at him "For a start, I'm not in the mood to laugh about that dog and pony show yesterday, so don't push with that again." Greg nodded, he knew Chuck didn't like putting on a show, and he conceded that he should have waited until they were in private to pull that stunt.

"Seriously though Chuck, congratulations on the promotion and the command, I know that you'll do us proud."

"Thanks Greg, it's going to be a slog to get the team up to delivering what they want, and we'll be looking for your help on that." Greg nodded again.

"How many do we have on board so far?"

"About two thirds, we've got another half dozen still fighting to get signed off so that they can return to duty, if you can call sitting in an office returning to duty."

Chuck looked at him, a little exasperated "It was the best I could do Greg, I know it's not combat but you'll never get signed off for combat, you know that. This way, you guys are helping improve the chances of the guys out there coming back in one piece, I thought we agreed that that was a good thing?"

"It is, it is, sorry, it's just frustrating, not being able to get out there any more, having to take a back seat is hard."

Chuck nodded, then asked. "Can you get the guys to help Lieutenant Lancaster get those pictures down and get the wall cleaned up? The only one that's staying there is the group photo, though some of them will be going up elsewhere in the office."

Greg nodded and went to stand up but Chuck waved him back down. "While you're here, I wanted to run something past you, I was thinking of putting up some of the pictures of those of us who will be directing operations and Ellie in the field up in the conference rooms that we'll be using for meetings. Do you think that would help, or harm, the way the ones who we haven't been in action with see us?"

"I'd say it would help the cause, and I think you should also have you and the Colonel's (nodding to Sarah's office) induction pictures up so they don't question whether your positions are real. I know it shouldn't be needed, but you're way too young to be an Admiral in most people's eyes, and you know your little lady looks like a supermodel, on the basis of that some won't believe that she really belongs in a position of command. Also, we want to have a big one of the operational side of the unit up in there too, so they can read the medals, hopefully that'll get through to the ones who don't know who y'all are that you're the real deal." With that, and a salute, Greg left.

Sarah turned up in the doorway to her office again "Well that was a very complimentary way of saying that no-one will take me seriously."

Chuck looked at her "No, just the ones who are too stupid to look past your beauty and see what you are."

She gave him a disbelieving look. "Which is most guys."

He nodded resignedly "Which is most guys, at first, but every operation we run will include guys who know do who you are and what you can do, Shanti, and you have us, AND the confidence of the people who put us here, it will work."

She walked over to him and sat in his lap, saying "This is going to be hard."

Chuck sighed. "Yeah, but we'll make it work, those people are certain we can do this, and what's more, that we're the only ones who can." She nodded, putting her arms around his neck and moving in to kiss him.

They were in the middle of a slow, sweet kiss when they heard a voice in the office "Well that explains everything!"

They quickly turned to the voice, to see a tall blonde woman turning away with a smirk on her face and Chuck barked "Stop right there!" The woman froze as the command rang out through the offices, and Sarah hopped off his lap as Chuck reached for the phone.

When Aunt D answered, Chuck went on the warpath "General, you assured me that the people that you assigned to my command were personally selected by you and that they were the best you had available. Can you explain to me, then, why Agent Alexandra Forrest would believe that it would be acceptable to enter her commanding officer's office, uninvited and unannounced, and make unsolicited comments about her superior officers?"

There was a brief silence as she processed what he'd said, when she spoke, it was obvious that she was furious and trying to control herself. "I apologise Admiral, I took that agent on and assigned her to you on the basis of glowing reports from people that I trusted. I will obviously have to re-evaluate everything I got from those people, but that isn't your problem, please hold a moment while I address this issue."

They heard her making another phone call "Captain Noble, proceed at once to the Admiral's office and take Agent Forrest into custody, she is to remain restrained, and in your custody, until you deliver her to me in my office. Take the first available commercial flight, I expect you to be here no later than first thing tomorrow morning!"

Within thirty seconds an officer stood at the door, knocking before saluting and asking "Permission to take charge of the prisoner Admiral?" Chuck nodded, "Granted" Noble replied "Thank you sir." and quickly cuffed Forrest before saluting to Chuck and Sarah again and hustling Forrest out the door."

When they were gone, Aunt D spoke in a softer voice. "I'm sorry Chuck, on paper, and according to all the reports I received about her, she was one of the best. If you're prepared to trust me though, the replacement who will come back with Captain Noble, Captain Victoria Dunwoody, has been personally vetted by me and I can assure you that she is the best I have."

Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded encouragingly, so he said "Alright Aunt D." She apologised again and was about to finish the call when he stopped her. "One more thing, you told Josie to put up all the pictures from the ceremonies in the main office here, don't do anything like that again General, this is our command and we will make the decisions about the image that we want to project. That wasn't your call and I've had to make them take nearly all those pictures down."

"I'm sorry Chuck, you're right, I thought that it would help convince the people coming in of the importance of your group, but it wasn't my call to make and I shouldn't have done it without consulting you. I guess I'm like Ellie, sometimes I still see you as the boy that we need to protect instead of the man that you've become. I'm sorry, I won't do that again."

"Thanks Aunt D, see you soon,"

"OK, goodbye Chuck, goodbye Sarah."

After that, they spent a while longer getting things pointed in the right direction and then they, along with Casey, Carina, Zondra, Jeff and Anna went upstairs to get changed and head down to the PS&T offices for their other day job. At least with having both offices in their building, they could switch between their two roles quickly and easily.

One thing that Chuck did on the way out was to stop and suggest to Greg that they see about digging up pictures of all of them (waving his hand around the office) in the field, and think about positions to hang them around the office. That could help remind the guys what they were here for, as well as reinforcing to the people coming in, just what they were coming into. Greg nodded thoughtfully and said "Yes, sir."

Ellie and Emma had the biggest job in Operations Command at that point, getting the Information Dominance team up to speed. Jeff and Anna were part of the team (as was Chuck to a degree), but they weren't needed to organise the team and retrain them to handle proper analyst's roles, Ellie could handle that with Emma's help.

* * *

Of course, things never went easy for them, and Aunt D came back a couple of days later with a mission that the core team (Chuck, Sarah and Casey) was needed for. The NSA had had a man undercover, investigating a suspected Fulcrum cell, who'd disappeared some time ago. They had recently found him and he was recovered, but by all accounts he appeared to be brain dead, burnt out.

She'd consulted with Chuck's father, and he'd confirmed that all the signs looked like the subjects that Graham had forced the human testing of the early Intersect build on, so it appeared that Fulcrum were trying to get an Intersect working.

They'd taken some steps, such as arranging for the purchase of a house in the street, already, but Aunt D had been trying to come up with an option that didn't involve them to no avail.

While she didn't want to take them away from everything else they were doing just now, Chuck was the only one who had any chance of identifying the Fulcrum agents and Intersect equipment, and there was no way Sarah or Casey would let him go in without them, so the old team was back together again for this one.

As a result of that Charles and Sarah Powers were moving into a house in the street where the agent had been before he'd disappeared that afternoon, with Casey as Johan the handyman pottering around the house, trying to get through the long list of things that they'd brought him in to get done.

Chuck went to the office the next morning (after Casey had turned up, he wasn't going to leave Sarah there alone), and spent most of the time working in the PS&T office. Around mid-afternoon though, he got a call from Sarah to say that they were hosting a get to know you BBQ for street, so he needed to make sure that he was home by six.

He didn't like the tone he was hearing in her voice, as it said that she was worried about something, so he asked her about inviting Ricky and Vicky along so that they could meet their new neighbours too, and the relief he heard in her voice when she said that that would be a great idea really set his alarm bells off.

As soon as he got off the phone he called Greg and asked him to send Captains Noble and Dunwoody to his office downstairs straight away. They arrived five minutes later and he sat them down, explaining the situation and requested that they come along as support in case things turned nasty.

They agreed without any hesitation, so he laid out the scenario, Ricky worked with Chuck at a software company, and Vicky, his wife, was a legal secretary. He saw Captain Noble tense at the name Ricky, but when Chuck asked "Is there an issue Captain Noble?" he calmed down as he told him "My brothers always called me Ricky when I was a kid and I hated it, I'd prefer Rick, of that's OK sir?"

Chuck nodded and said, "Rick it is then." Then he looked over and asked "Captain Dunwoody, do you have an issue with Vicky?" She proved that she had a great smile as she said "No, Vicky's fine, Charles." "OK, so you're Rick and Vicky Rogers then."

"Now, I presume that you guys have casual clothes with you?" They nodded and he said that he'd meet them in the parking area, ready to go, at 1700.

Rick was less than impressed with the Honda he was given to drive, until Chuck pointed out that the Volvo he was driving wasn't any better, and with that they followed him back to the house in the suburbs.

At the BBQ, Chuck wasn't getting flashes on any of their neighbours, but things weren't right, all the "husbands" were coming onto Sarah, which was normal enough, but not one of them was sniffing around Vicky, who was gorgeous as well. It went the same with Chuck and Rick, the "wives" were all flirting with Chuck, especially Sylvia, the aggressive older woman from across the street, but none of them made a move on Rick, who looked like a male model.

Because of their mission, Sarah had to play nice with the sleaze bags who were coming onto her, so it looked like she was getting friendly with them. That was why, when Casey found a bug in the tray that Sylvia had brought over, and Chuck got a flash that identified that it was part of a batch that was now in Fulcrum's possession, they reluctantly agreed that Chuck would have to play her, because as well as the bug, Ellie, Jeff and Anna had already traced records of numerous purchases of heavy duty computing equipment back to her husband.

After the BBQ was finished and the neighbours had gone home, Rick and Vicky stayed to help them clean up (as good friends would), and they finally had a chance to talk about what had been going on. Like Chuck, Sarah had been getting a "wrong" vibe from the neighbours who came over, and that was what caused the uncomfortable tone that Chuck had been picking up in her voice when she called. Rick and Vicky had also picked up on the fact that they didn't seem to exist to the neighbours, but they'd been all over Chuck and Sarah. Something was definitely off here.

Sylvia's husband was supposedly away on a business trip, so Sarah went out the next morning for a day with the girls, and Chuck went knocking on Mrs Cougar's door. It was fairly easy for him to slip into Gancanagh mode and explain away his change of heart (as he'd been saying no to her at the BBQ) away as "If it's good for the goose, it's good for the gander."

He told her angrily he'd seen the way that Sarah had been flirting with the guys the night before, and she'd spent an awful lot of time getting ready for a day with the girls, so he had his suspicions that what she was doing was going off to see someone else again like she used to, and if she could do it, why shouldn't he?

Sylvia all but dragged him into the house and gave him a drink, asking him to give her ten or fifteen minutes to get ready while she headed upstairs. Chuck sniffed his drink and thought that there was something not quite right about it, so he wasn't about to drink any of it.

As soon as he heard the bedroom door shut upstairs he ducked into the study/office downstairs and accessed the computer. That was where things went wrong though, because it had been set up for some sort of Intersect upload, and as soon as he got past the security, he was hit with it.

It was only a small upload though, and he rode it out in five minutes or so. When he'd recovered he quickly locked the computer again and tipped half the drink down the sink in the bathroom before putting the glass back on the coffee table and calling upstairs to tell Sylvia that for some reason he really didn't feel well and he had to go, bolting out the door and back to "his" house.

As soon as he was inside he signalled for Casey to check for bugs, and when it came up clean he called Aunt D to organise a strike team for the house across the road, with enough support to handle everyone else in the street. The fact that he was hit with an Intersect load of any sort was proof enough that they had the right location and had cause to move in. She got things in motion for that, and he and Casey settled in to watch the house across the street.

About ten minutes after he'd come home, Sylvia's husband pulled in and went inside the house, so obviously his "business trip" hadn't been very far away at all. The problem, though, was that Sarah pulled hurriedly into their drive about fifteen minutes later.

Chuck asked what the hell she was doing there, and Casey told him that he'd called her to tell her what happened and that he was OK while he was on the phone to the General. Chuck wanted to deck Casey for that, but he left it for now as he rushed out to get Sarah inside where she'd be safe, only to get tranqed, along with her, as soon as he got to her. Of course, when Casey came running out to help them, he was tranqed too.

When Chuck came to, he was strapped into a chair with his head locked into place, and Sylvia and the other neighbours were all working around him, setting up monitoring and testing equipment. He decided to keep playing the cover so he asked where his wife was, but Sylvia laughed, saying "She's not your wife, Charles, she's a CIA Agent, and I'm guessing that makes you one, too."

Working on keeping up the panicked civilian act, he kept going. "What are you talking about? Sarah can't be CIA, she's my wife, what do you want with me?"

Just then he saw Sarah, handcuffed to a chair in the next room, trying to get free, but one of his neighbours, Brad, answered his question. "You have a very special brain Mr Powers, and we're hoping for great things from you, everybody else we've tried has failed, but I'm banking on you being the one that works for us."

"What are you talking about?"

Sylvia stepped in again "What you saw on the computer upstairs was part of a program, the CIA developed it originally, but they gave up before they took it anywhere near what it could be. We're going to take what they started and make it into something great!"

"OK, I'll do what you ask, but let Sarah go, please?" Sylvia laughed again "Don't tell me you've actually fallen for her? What, did she tell you that you had a future, that she cared about you? Don't you know that it's all an act? You're just a job to her Charles, nothing she told you about her feelings for you was real!"

Brad laughed as well. "Don't worry, this will help you get over her, if you survive it." and with that they all moved into the next room.

Sylvia's "husband" kicked something off and some screens dropped down in front of Chuck, Sarah started calling out to him but Sylvia just told her "Don't bother, he can't hear you."

Everyone in the room put sunglasses on, and they even put a pair on Sarah before Sylvia's husband initiated the program.

When the program finished, Chuck passed out, and as he slumped in the chair they started abusing Brad, saying that it was just yet another failure of his damned program, until Chuck started to move. At that they all rushed in and Sylvia asked him "Do you know where you are Charles?"

Chuck played their game "Beneath the Meadow Branch subdivision in a Fulcrum lab that was built to pursue the Fulcrum initiative."

"What initiative?"

"To properly develop the Intersect program."

Brad was almost jumping up and down as he said "It worked!", but Sylvia looked calculating as she asked "Do you mind if we test your wife next?"

Chuck looked at her with a confused expression, as he said "Wife? I don't have a wife."

They were all celebrating as they got him out of the chair and started strapping Sarah into it.

Chuck's plan at that point was to take them out while they were occupied and then get Sarah away from there, letting the strike team that was on its way handle everybody who was left, but just before he moved he saw Casey scuttling across to the control console in the next room.

Chuck had his back to the Fulcrum Agents, so he winked back at him when Casey signalled that he was getting ready to initiate the program, saying "Before you start, I'd like to tell Agent Walker something."

Sylvia sniggered "Agent Walker, now we have a name."

Chuck leaned in close to her and whispered "Close your eyes", which made Sarah look past him to see Casey with the sunglasses already on, so she squeezed her eyes shut tight and Chuck pulled her face into his chest to ensure that he blocked her from seeing any of the images as Casey hit "Enter".

Even though he'd already gotten through this OK, Chuck closed his eyes too, so he only heard the cries and crashing going on around him, but as soon as the flickering through his eyelids stopped, he opened his eyes to look around and saw all the Fulcrum people laying twisted on the floor.

When he asked Sarah if she was OK as he was unstrapping her, her response was "Yeah, are you?", looking relieved when he said "Yeah, I think so", then as soon as he had her free she leapt into his arms.

Casey came into the room to check if they were OK, and Chuck noted his left thumb as he started to answer "Yeah, we're OK, so you actually broke your thumb to get out of the cuffs? I always thought that that was just a line you used to get me going?"

That made Casey look at his hand and wince. "Well it isn't something that I'd want to do often, but it did the job."

After that they went through the facility, securing anyone else that they found down there while they were waiting for the strike team to arrive, then Chuck pulled out all the drives that held the Fulcrum Intersect and stashed them away in a bag, and as soon as they had time they grabbed a first aid kit to strap up Casey's hand.

When the strike team arrived, they handed everything but the drives over to them and tasked them with taking everyone else left in the street into custody.

As soon as that was all in hand, they took the Fulcrum Intersect drives with them when they headed back to Quixote House, with Chuck driving Casey's truck to save him more pain with his hand.

* * *

Ellie and their father came up with and ran an extensive series of tests on Chuck to try and determine what uploading the Fulcrum Intersect might have done to him. As far as they could see though, the Fulcrum Intersect hadn't done any significant damage, there were only a few minor glitches that had been introduced. They did all the Intersect testing at night, so that nobody else knew about it, but Ellie made sure to keep Sarah in the loop about everything, to save her worrying about Chuck unnecessarily.

There WERE a lot of things in the new databases that the Fulcrum Intersect added that he'd rather not have known, like the details of over a thousand ways to inflict pain and death on a person or incapacitate a body, a veritable encyclopaedia of torture techniques, frighteningly extensive drug and poisons databases with the effects that they and any combinations may have on the human body and the like, but generally he found that he could keep away from accessing those subjects if he was careful.

This did mean that they had an ace in the hole now, though. As far as they knew, they were the only people who knew what the nature of the Intersect program being worked on there by Fulcrum was, and Chuck had removed all trace of those files before anyone else found them.

That meant that they had all the code for the latest version of the Fulcrum Intersect, which worked (for Chuck, anyway), and which actually had some new code that let physical skills be directly accessed via the Intersect.

They also had Chuck (a coding genius), Ellie (a highly accomplished neurologist) and Leslie (who was possibly even more brilliant than them) to help Stefan redevelop this into something that was safe, could fix some of the existing issues, and could do far more than any of the previous Intersects had.

* * *

Meanwhile, they were getting ready for the first live run of Operations Command. After working with Rick and Vicky, they were prepared to accept Aunt D's assertion that they were the best she had, so they did a reshuffle of roles in Operations Command.

Vicky took over from Josie as Chuck, Sarah and Ellie's assistant/receptionist, Josie became the admin assistant for Ellie's INFODOM section, and Rick became the admin assistant for Sarah's operations section.

While Chuck, Sarah and Casey were operating in the suburbs, Greg, and Ellie (with help from Bry, Carina and Zondra) had been getting the OC offices ready to present the image that Chuck and Sarah had said they wanted. Most of the walls now featured several poster sized pictures of various members of the office team out in the field (though Chuck had noted that most of those pictures also had one or more of him, Casey, Bry, Sarah, Carina, Zondra and Ellie in them).

A couple of those pictures were now flanking the group picture that he'd allowed to stay up on the wall behind the assistant/receptionist's desk, and the one of him, Sarah and Ellie with the Commander, Special Operations Command was up there too.

In the area where Casey, Bry, Carina and Zondra's offices were, the action pictures shared wall space with the operations group photo. In the INFODOM area they shared wall space with the INFODOM group picture.

In the conference rooms, the action photos were joined by Chuck and Sarah's induction pictures and the ops group picture as Greg had suggested, and what they presented did seem to work, because they had less issues than they'd been expecting.

They were glad that they'd reshuffled the admin roles, though. Vicky was better prepared to deal with the ones who came in who thought that they were god's gift to women than Josie would have been, she had no trouble at all shooting men like that down. When they leered at her when she came into the meetings, she just shrugged it off like Sarah, Carina, Zondra and Ellie did, and by making Rick the ops team's assistant, he was the one who had to go in there the most.

The girls did still have some issues with ones who were overly persistent, but after Sarah pushed her wedding rings into one Colonel's face and then broke his arm for grabbing her, everyone they knew made sure that the story got around that if you mess with the women in OC, you're going to get hurt, which helped a little.

They fudged a little on their first operation, as they had three people (Casey, Carina and Zondra) running something that they'd generally running with one, but they'd agreed that they wanted to make sure that the initial operation went off without a hitch, and they also wanted to ease Carina and Zondra into this side of things.

Chuck had been planning and running military operations for over ten years, Bry and Casey even longer, and Sarah's background of planning and running cons (quite complex ones sometimes) since she was a girl had carried over into the CIA so that she was planning and running operations there, too, but Carina and Zondra had less experience at this, so they decided to start them off a little easier.

Anyway, everything went well, Ellie and Emma had their people working well as analysts as well as INFODOM officers, so they were delivering the intel needed in a timely manner and didn't cause any hold-ups in the operation, and Carina and Zondra did their bit well, too.

* * *

As well as their OC roles, Rick and Vicky took up admin roles in PS&T, and they were added to the Intersect team as well (though they weren't fully read into the Intersect as yet, and they hadn't been included in the DIA Special Projects team yet either).

The Intersect team had more than quadrupled in size since they moved to Quixote House and had it made an autonomous Directorate reporting to the DNI, it had started out as just Chuck, Sarah and Casey (with Jeff and Anna assisting unofficially on the tech side), but once Graham was dead and they had signoff to operate as a separate group, Jeff and Anna were officially brought on board, as were Carina, Zondra, Mei-Ling, Ellie, Bry and Josie, and now with Emma, Rick and Vicky in the team they were up to fourteen.

The Special Projects Directorate's team stood at fifteen (seventeen on paper due to Chuck and Ellie's alter egos), because while Rick and Vicky hadn't been let in on that side yet, they had Marjan, Stefan and Leslie back in D.C. with Stefan and Leslie working on their technology projects and Marjan providing protective services and stepping in as a field agent where required.

All in all though, that added a lot of weight with Chuck's Special Agent in Charge responsibilities for both the NSA and DIA. Ellie took a bit of the load off by managing the Analyst side of both groups, just like she did in Operations Command, but it all sat fairly heavily on Chuck, being responsible for two intelligence teams, a military command and a business, even if none of them were that large.

 ** **A/N: Yeah, Ricky and Vicky are in da house. I never liked the Forrest character, but Ricky and Vicky were OK after they got the Intersect removed. I know NBC said that they were all CIA, but they kept referring to Ricky and Vicky as "Captain", which apparently was more of an NSA practice, so I'm banking on them being intended to be NSA.**** ** **Anyway, adding a hot guy for the girls to fight over and another tall, hot blonde can't hurt, can it?****


	18. Memory Lane

**Warning for the sensitive souls, there's an unpleasant section with nasty CIA types in this chapter, and while no good folks are killed, the CIA does clean house to appease the Enforcer. Also, the original brunette skank is in this one too.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

* * *

The service representatives coming into Operations Command for the operation commencement meetings were trying to work out just who these people were.

For a start, the staff and officers included people from the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force. Over half of the staff in the office were highly decorated, battle hardened warriors who had obviously been forced out of the field due to injuries that they'd sustained in battle, as many of them were amputees.

All around the office were pictures taken in the field under special ops conditions, and every picture included some of the people attached to the command. On top of that, between the staff and the officers running things here, they were seeing more decorations than they'd ever seen in one place before, and that included ceremonies held to celebrate these sort of things.

Most of the people in this office were obviously well known to the more experienced special ops people, going by the greetings upon arrival, and that spoke of a history which seemed surprising, given the apparent youth of most of the officers.

They'd been warned not to question the validity of the rank of any of these officers, but it was hard not to, two of the Colonels and two of the Commanders looked old enough to hold their ranks, but the rest, no way.

The Navy Rear Admiral who was the Commander, Operations Command, in particular, looked like he was still in his twenties, which was of course impossible at that rank, and if it weren't, there could be no way he'd have had the time to earn the medals he had, just the top row of those medals said that this man was something exceptional. The way he was greeted by the old hands in the special ops world though showed a level of respect and history that obviously belied his apparent youth.

There was the pictures on display, too, he appeared in so many of them that he must have spent his career in the field. Some people were throwing the name Mowgli around in regard to him, but most were convinced that Mowgli was just a myth.

And then there were the women, most of the female officers looked young and beautiful, and none more so than the Air Force Colonel who was the Deputy Commander, Operations Command.

Like the Admiral, there was no way she looked like she should be there, she looked like she belonged on a magazine cover (well, most of the female officers did), but the old school guys obviously knew her and respected her, so she must have done her time on the ground, too, and she wouldn't be wearing those medals around those guys unless she'd earned them. She appeared in enough of those pictures to support that.

There were rumours going around that the Colonel was actually married to the Admiral, some even insisted that they'd seen the wedding picture on her desk, but most just brushed them off as stories. She WAS married, and she'd made that QUITE clear to anyone stupid enough to try to approach her, but married to her boss? The big brass would never have allowed that.

One thing that no-one could argue, though, was that these people didn't know what they were doing. The operations they ran went like clockwork, and if something didn't go to plan, they'd have a contingency ready to handle it. Given that their casualty rates and collateral damage incidents were going down, and their success rates were going up, the guys who were going in were quite happy to have these guys running things.

* * *

Except when they were heading off to run operations locally, the team was still splitting its time between the OC and PS&T offices, so much so that unless someone had client meetings in the office, they normally just stayed in uniform. Most of their client meetings were at the customers' offices, anyway, so what they wore in the office rarely mattered, Piranha didn't do walk in business, they got business via client referrals.

Sarah had an unpleasant run in with her past in one of those client meetings, Chuck had gone off with the CIO of the company to get the figures he needed to scope the work for them, and Sarah had stayed talking to some of the other senior representatives about other aspects of the proposal.

One of them had been an unpleasant character she'd had dealings with in her early days with the CIA, but she'd told Chuck that she'd be fine when he was worried about leaving her alone with these guys, putting her phone on the conference table to let him know that if anything came up she'd send him an alert, as well as starting a recording, so he'd reluctantly given in and left with the CIO.

Less than five minutes later, it was obvious Johnson had planned this, because the other two guys got up and walked out, laughing as they leered at her on the way out, and Johnson came over to prop himself on the edge of the conference table beside her in what was obviously meant to be a debonair pose.

"So Walker, looks like you've landed a plum gig this time, word is that Carmichael is loaded, so all you have to do to get everything handed to you on a platter is to keep putting out like you always have, huh? Carmichael must be easy compared to the others you've done."

"Get away from me Johnson! As soon as my husband gets back, we're out of here!"

"Oh, don't worry about hubby, I've arranged for him to be tied up for quite a while so that we won't be disturbed, and my buddies will keep everyone else away."

At that Sarah stood up. "I don't know what you think you're going to get here Johnson, but I can assure you it's not happening."

"Don't be like that Walker, I just want what you owe me, and as long as I get it, you can keep playing your rich geek so that you can go on living the good life."

She crossed her arms and stepped back from him. "And what do you think I owe you Johnson?"

"What you gave everyone else, you're going to do everything I tell you to until I decide that I've had enough, and then my buddies will have their turns. And afterwards I'll tell you what the arrangements will be for down the track."

"You're deranged Johnson. There's nothing that could make me agree to any of that!"

"Oh you'll do everything I tell you to, or I'll tell hubby how you're a CIA whore and how often you'd happily do anything and everything that anyone wanted you to AND I'll let him in on the fact that this is just a job, that you were ordered to pretend to marry him to keep him in line. It'll be fun destroying him as I tell him all the juicy details."

"By the time I finish with him, if he doesn't kill himself once he's found out the truth about his little princess, he won't be able to stand being in the same country as you, your good life will be over, so stop wasting time and get your clothes off."

"How do you come up with this shit Johnson, or did you get it from all the other pathetic losers who every woman has said no to?"

"Give up the act Walker, we got it from Larkin and all the others that you gave it up for all the time."

Sarah was fighting to keep her temper in check now "Well why don't you go back to Larkin and the others telling you this bullshit and check your facts, oh that's right, you can't check with Larkin because he tried to screw over the wrong woman one too many times and he's dead. But give me the names of the rest of them and I'll make sure that they tell the truth before I finish them."

Johnson was staring at her, shocked by the revelation that Bryce Larkin was dead. He still believed all the stories that Larkin and others had told, though, so he kept pushing.

"Don't try that crap Walker, we both know the truth what you are. Now are you going to give me what you owe me, or do you want hubby to find out all about his little CIA fuck toy?"

At that moment he was taken by a paralysing grip to the back of the neck which made terrible pains start shooting through his entire body, so much so that he could hardly register what the voice hissing in his ear was saying.

"I already know what my wife did for the CIA, a lot better than you, obviously, because you don't have a clue. My wife was never a fuck toy for anyone, and anyone who calls her that is in for serious pain."

"If we were somewhere we could dispose of your remains cleanly, what you just tried to force her to do would have been the end of you, here and now, the only question would have been whether she'd let me share in giving you the pain that you deserve, or she'd insist on keeping that pleasure to herself. It's too public here though, so we're going to have to let you live for today, but keep looking over your shoulder, Agent Johnson, because it won't be long before we'll be coming for you."

"Why don't you try to get the CIA to protect you, that'll just make it easier for us as it'll bring more targets together in one place, so please, do it. Tick, tock, Johnson, get your affairs in order, because your time is running out, fast."

At that Chuck looked at Sarah and she tried to smile to convince him that she was OK, but she couldn't manage it. A massive "crunch" sounded out in the room a moment later as he forcefully slammed Johnson's face into the conference table, pulverising it, and then he gently took Sarah's hand and led her from the room.

When they got out into the hall, she saw the two that had walked out to leave her alone with Johnson and they were still laughing, so they didn't see her until she was right on them. The first one received an incapacitating kick to the groin, followed by a right cross which broke his jaw.

The other one had a bit of warning and swung at her, as he did so she grabbed his arm and twisted and wrenched it violently, destroying the elbow, separating his shoulder and shattering the bones. Then she kicked the side of his right knee to shatter it and she reached forward to grip his chin, but Chuck's gentle hand on her arm stopped her from snapping his neck, so she stepped back, breathing deeply to compose herself. When she was a little calmer she walked around in front of the guy, and delivered a devastating kick to the groin that left him passed out from the pain, curled up in a foetal position.

Chuck gently took her hand again and asked "Better?" "A little, yeah." "Good, let's get out of here."

As soon as they were back at Quixote House, Chuck got Ellie to give her a sedative and stayed with her, except when he called to inform the CEO of the company, Clive Burrows, of what happened and that PS&T would never deal with his company. When he called him, though, Burrows didn't give him a chance to say anything, he just launched into a diatribe about how he and his wife were done for, if the police didn't get them, the CIA would.

Chuck cut him off, pointing out that it was his people who were done for, because they had recordings that were proof of their plans to try and force her into being a sex slave. Burrows sealed his fate then as he laughed at him. "Carmichael, your wife is a whore, you're the only one who doesn't know that. We were just going to give her what what she wants, we probably would have been doing her a favour because there was no way that someone like you could have kept up with her appetites."

After taking a short break to get control of himself, Chuck responded quietly "OK, now you're on the list Burrows, I'll give you the same deal I gave your CIO, you have until the end of the week to try and disappear." "Or what, your wife will fuck us to death? You're an idiot Carmichael, everyone knows that she was Graham's favourite because of what she did for him, and the way the CIA is, she must be incredible to make that distinction, I think I'll have to try her out before I let them deal with her."

It was Chuck's turn to laugh "You've got that half right Burrows, my wife is incredible at what she does, but you and the rest of those scum just got what she does wrong, ask your CIA buddies about Graham's Enforcer. The deal stands, you have until the end of the week to try and disappear, and then we come after you." With that, he hung up.

As there was no way of getting the story out of Johnson after Carmichael destroyed his face like that, Burrows went straight to the source, the CIA Director (the guy owed him because he gave cover jobs to his agents to give them access to the industry). When he was on the phone to the Director, Burrows was laughing about how they had Carmichael running scared, telling him about the bluff Carmichael had tried to make about some enforcer, when there was suddenly silence on the other end of the line.

The man's voice when he came back with "What, exactly, did he say?" was subdued, possibly even a little frightened. When Burrows tried to laugh about it, he cut him off harshly and demanded to know EXACTLY what Carmichael had said.

Burrows stammered out, "He said, my wife is incredible at what she does, but you got what she does wrong, ask your CIA buddies about Graham's Enforcer."

All he could hear from the other end the line was multiple "fuck"s, and something about "That's why no-one we sent after them ever came back, we thought it was that NSA robot Casey, but all the time it was the Enforcer!" and "It's that idiot Larkin's fault, he was the one who told me she was good for incredible sex and arm candy, but nothing else, if that bastard wasn't dead I'd kill him." About that time the Director realised that he was still on the line and hung up.

Burrows was starting to realise that what he'd gone into looking for great sex from a premium CIA fuck toy may have signed his death warrant, so he grabbed all the cash and valuables he could find out of the company's safes and ran, or at least he tried to.

The Director had decided to play it safe and had Burrows and everyone else involved grabbed and prominently executed, gangland style, and for good measure he added in all the CIA agents who'd been making the most vocal claims about what they did with Walker.

The way the Director looked at it, if Walker saw that he was cleaning out the ones who'd tried to blackmail her to do that, that should get him on her good side, and hopefully that would keep him safe from her retribution.

When they heard the reports about what had happened to Johnson, Burrows and the rest, Chuck and Sarah knew where to look for the answers, so they got Carina, Zondra and Roan to ask around the CIA (as they had the most connections). The results of their investigations were a little shocking, all up the purge had included over twenty, mostly CIA Agents.

Every one of them was a bottom feeder and the world was almost certainly better off without them, but Chuck still felt a bit guilty that a throw away comment from him in a moment of anger had gotten those men killed because someone else (probably the CIA Director) was trying to cover his arse by sucking up to Sarah.

It was Carina who pointed out the main (possibly the only) benefit in this. "At least now he knows that Sarah's the Enforcer, he'll stop sending people after her. He won't risk doing that unless he's got a big enough army to make sure that he succeeds in getting rid of her."

* * *

About a month after that, Chuck had his own unpleasant trip down memory lane, though it was nowhere as bad as Sarah's had been. While he was going through the daily items to see whether he got any information flashes, he got a flash on a virologist, Guy Lafleur, who had links to biological weapons and Fulcrum, and a large part of the link to Fulcrum (according to the Fulcrum Intersect co-habiting his head with the CIA/NSA Intersect) was his assistant, Jill Roberts.

He didn't want to report this to Aunt D, because he knew what she was going to ask of him, and sure enough she came back with the response that their best chance here was for Chuck to use their previous relationship to get the intel they needed from her.

Sarah argued (quite validly he thought) that it wasn't a good idea to put the Intersect in direct contact with a known Fulcrum Agent, but Aunt D came back with the titbit that they had intel that Lafleur had developed a potent bio-weapon and the company he worked for was looking to sell it off to the highest bidder, and if Fulcrum were to grab it, the situation could be very dangerous.

That was why the General (because Rick and Vicky were sitting in on the meeting) insisted that Chuck needed to go in and charm the pants off Jill to get the information they needed. Rick cut in at that point with. "No disrespect intended Admiral, but General, I hardly think the Admiral is the right man for that job, the Admiral is accomplished at many things, but I don't really think that being a Casanova is one of them."

The General sighed resignedly. "Admiral, I think you're going to have to show them." Chuck looked at Sarah and she smiled and nodded at him to go ahead, so he turned to Vicky, switching to Gacanagh mode as he did so. He started talking to her, and inside ten minutes she was totally engrossed with him and almost climbing into his lap, then he stopped and pulled back to break the spell, asking. "So, do you think I can do it Vicky?"

Vicky shook her head dazedly and looked at him "What the hell was that? What did you do to me?"

"I just talked to you."

"That was NOT just talking, did you hypnotise me?"

"Not exactly, it's just a trick I picked up a while ago."

Vicky half jokingly said. "Well as I'm just about ready to have your babies at the moment, could I at least get a kiss?"

"Ah, I don't.."

"It's OK Chuck, it's only fair since you did leave the poor girl so frustrated."

Chuck gave Sarah a look at that, but she let him know that she was serious, she really was OK with it, so he capitulated and gave Vicky a nice, friendly kiss.

Rick was just sitting there, wide eyed, as he couldn't believe what he'd just seen, and Sarah stopped by his chair to quietly ask whether he knew about the CIA trainer at the Farm, Roan Montgomery? Rick nodded, saying that that the guy was incredible, so Sarah nodded and pointed to Chuck, saying "When he was ten."

"WHAT?"

"It's a long story, but yeah."

The entry scenario they went with was for Charlemagne Computers Etc to go in to handle the technical work for the bio-medical conference that Jill was speaking at the next day, Jeff and Rick would be there as the on-site techs, and Chuck would come in as the owner to see how things were going, timing it so that he'd run into Jill.

* * *

That night, while they were snuggling in bed and Sarah was absent-mindedly running her fingertips over his pecs (as she was wont to do), she looked up at Chuck with a confused look on her face. "How could Jill leave this (waving her hand down Chuck's body) and the rest of who you are and what you do for Larkin?"

Chuck pulled her in to him as he settled down "Well, as for this (pointing at his chest), she never really saw it, she made sure I knew just what she wanted, right from the start. She liked it hard and fast from behind, either option, and whenever I tried to do anything else with her she'd just push me back and turn around to make me do it her way."

"Also, while she was quite willing to give a great blow job, she was never into snuggling or caressing, any of the things we like to do, at all, so we never spent time together like this. I'm pretty sure she decided that she just wanted to own the legend and that was what she went after. I doubt I was anything more than bragging rights to her, she just wanted to be able to rub the other girls' faces in the fact that she had me and they didn't."

Sarah still looked doubtful, but she responded. "It's still hard to believe that any woman could pass this up, but if that was all she wanted, then Larkin would have been perfect for her I guess. If that's the case, though, are you sure that this is going to work?"

"I think so, back then she came after me, hard, so I never used any of the Gancanagh moves on her, and she won't be expecting it. Also, I'll be going in as a successful businessman, rather than a penniless scholarship kid this time, so that change will interest her too."

Sarah moved closer to him as she murmured drowsily "I hope it works."

Chuck nodded and brought his head down to kiss her before they settled in to get some sleep.

* * *

The meet went to plan, Jill came by to get things sorted out for her presentation, but when she heard Chuck's voice she immediately stopped trying to flirt with Rick and latched onto him. Chuck could hear Sarah grinding her teeth over his earpiece when Jill was all over him, so he shot a look at Jeff, and heard Jeff passing on the message that he'd teed up with him earlier.

"Sarah, Chuck wanted me to remind you that this wasn't his idea, but you'd both agreed that this was necessary for the mission, he also asked me to let you know that he's NOT enjoying this, and that he'll make it up to you when he gets home."

He heard Sarah calm down and then say "Thanks Jeff, I needed that, love you Honey." Chuck nodded at Jeff, and Jeff spoke again "He does too", which got a laugh out of her, because it showed that he'd known her well enough to script all of this out ahead of time with Jeff.

He arranged to take Jill out to dinner that night, to a restaurant that they'd taken over to ensure that he'd be addressed as Mr Bartek instead of Mr Carmichael, and so that he wouldn't be seen with another woman. After Jill had left, he turned to their camera, pulled his wedding ring out from under his shirt where he had it hanging on a chain and kissed it, mouthing "Love you too" at the camera when he heard "Love you" over his earpiece.

* * *

Back at the office, Vicky was in Sarah's office while this was going on, and when Sarah cut the mic after her exchanges with Chuck and Jeff, she asked her "Are you OK with this?"

Sarah smiled at her "Yeah, thanks, it's just not a good feeling, having to watch your partner work someone like that. I can't really complain, though, Chuck's had to watch me do it far more than I have him." She stopped at that and looked up from their wedding picture at Vicky.

"You know what you were saying about having Chuck's babies?"

"Sarah, I was..."

Sarah cut her off. "It's OK, I know you were joking.." She stopped briefly before continuing with a smirk. "Mostly, but the reason I brought it up was, have you wondered who the three girls in my bridal party were?"

Vicky shrugged. "I just presumed that they were your nieces, or cousins or something?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, they're Chuck's daughters."

"WHAT?" Vicky reached over to turn the wedding picture around to look at it. "That's not possible, they're teenagers!"

Sahah nodded "Yeah, they were fourteen there."

"But that would make Chuck..."

Sarah nodded again. "He was thirteen when they were born."

"How the hell did that happen?"

"Well, like I was telling Rick, it's complicated, but do you know who Roan Montgomery is?"

"The seduction master? Yeah, I got to train with him at the Farm."

"Well he taught Chuck how to handle girls when he was ten."

"At TEN? That's terrible!"

"That was my reaction too, but it wasn't as bad as it sounded, Chuck went to him because his Uncle Roan was the only one he could talk to…."

"Uncle Roan?"

"That's what he called him, Chuck's a second generation spy and Roan was one of his mother's friends, anyway, his parents had to disappear just before he started getting interested in girls, and Roan was the only one that Chuck thought could help him, so he went to him and Roan gave him some very good advice on how to talk to and treat girls, but he inadvertently created a monster."

"From what Chuck and Ellie told me, a couple of years later a sleepover of Ellie's friends went awry and he suddenly became the hot target for all the girls. That went on for nearly four years until he found out he was a father, and he backed off a lot then."

"About three and a half years after that he started up with her (pointing to the screen) and stopped seeing other girls, until he caught her cheating on him and he gave up on all women for about five years, but then he met someone else, well, met her again." That last thought brought a smile to her face.

"Anyway, I guess what I was getting at was, don't feel too bad about crumbling the way you did with him, he's a master at this, he just doesn't show that side to us normally. As you can see (waving at the picture), you aren't the first woman who's thought of having his babies, you aren't even the only one in this room to do that."

Vicky looked at her "Thanks Sarah, that makes me feel a little less stupid and easy…. You said that his mother was a spy, do you mind my asking who?"

"Have you ever heard of Frost?"

"Of course, she was a legend, we heard about her at the Farm, SHE's Chuck's mother?"

"Chuck and Ellie's mother, yeah."

"I suppose that makes sense, from what I've seen of him, he's incredible."

Sarah smiled at the picture of them on her desk, softly saying "Yes, he is."

* * *

On the way to the restaurant, when Jill commented calculatingly that he must be doing pretty well for himself to afford an Aston Martin like this, Chuck laughed easily, responding with the truth.

"We're doing OK, but the car didn't cost anywhere near as much as you'd think, I have a friend who used to be in the DEA, and they let me know when it was coming up at a claimed goods auction. There weren't many people there that day so I snapped it up at a really good price. Which was good, because it left more money to fund some of the initiatives we were making with the business."

"What type of initiatives?"

"Oh, we were opening another office to expand the business, but were also moving more into serious security services, that's half of what we're doing for the conference, securing their environment against anyone hacking into the systems used."

Talking about what he did was a good opportunity to try and draw Jill out, so Chuck started asking her questions to lead her around to the information that they wanted from her. He kept things casual in the car, planning on building up to the point where he could get her to spill what they wanted from her later.

Vicky, Carina and Zondra were at the restaurant as his backup plan in case Jill needed a push. She wouldn't be able to resist trying to take him off someone else, so if she held back on the information they were after, Vicky would come over to confront him as his model girlfriend who happened to be there with a couple of girlfriends and caught him with Jill and then storm off.

Chuck would tell that he needed to go after Vicky to straighten things out, and he was certain that that'd be all it'd take for her to start talking, telling him about how important the things she was doing were in an attempt to impress him, and convince him that she had more to offer than any mere model. (He'd already seen the predatory look in her eye, and he was pretty sure she'd do whatever it took to take him away from another woman again, and as he'd told Sarah, he was already more interesting as a successful businessman.)

It was panning out the way he'd expected, she was filling in a lot of holes, but she was holding back, apparently she was more afraid of Fulcrum than he'd realised, so he signalled for Vicky to go into action. He didn't have to fake a reaction when Vicky came storming up with Carina and Zondra in tow, because he'd never seen her in a dress, or anything, that showed anywhere near that much before, and with her long legs, the impact was considerable, especially with Carina and Zondra behind her not wearing much more than she was (less in Carina's case). As soon as she arrived, she laid into him.

"What's this Chuck, I thought you told me you were working with your guys tonight to make sure that everything was ready for that conference? What are you doing here with this bitch? Well? You're the one who kept telling me that I could trust you, explain yourself!"

Chuck stood up to go to her "Giselle, Honey, it's not like that, Jill's an old friend that I ran into at the conference, so I just took a short break so we can catch up while she's in town."

"You're just taking a short break, in a nice suit here, at our favourite restaurant that's all the way across town from the conference centre? Great, you're not only cheating on me, you think I'm stupid enough to swallow your bullshit! You better decide which of us you want to be with and you better do it fast! You get one chance at this Chuck, and it's DEFINITELY time limited!"

With that she whirled around and stormed off, revealing that she was wearing some underwear anyway as she spun. Carina spat "Bastard" at Chuck before she followed her, and Zondra glared at him and said. "I thought you were different, but you're just as much a pig as the rest of them!" and then she followed the others.

Chuck turned to Jill and said "I'm sorry, but I have to go and straighten this out with her."

"Really Chuck? The bimbo throws a tantrum and you just run after her? I thought we were having a serious discussion about my work, but obviously Barbie's temper tantrum is more important."

"Look, I'm sorry, but let's face it, you were making it clear that you weren't allowed to tell me any more about what you're working on, so it was pretty clear that that particular discussion was about finished anyway."

"Did I say that I couldn't tell you anything? No-one can tell me what I can or can't tell anyone about my work! So, are you going to stay and talk to me, someone with a brain, or are you going to go running after Barbie?"

Chuck made a show of reluctantly sitting down again, and Casey and Sarah both made sure that they were recording what was coming over the links. Halfway through her description, a throwaway smug comment that she made about how Lafleur would be getting a surprise about the way things were going to happen had Chuck quickly activating the virtual keyboard that his watch projected under the table to type out a message to the others to get someone to Lafleur straight away, because Fulcrum was obviously planning to get rid of the problems that he posed for them.

Rick was the closest as he was working with Jeff at the conference centre near the hotel where Lafleur was staying. He managed to take out the Fulcrum assassin, but unfortunately not before the assassin had killed Lafleur. When word came through from Rick that he'd been too late, because Lafleur had already been assassinated, Chuck gave Casey the signal, so he came to secure Jill and take her into custody.

* * *

The FBI took over the case when Lafleur's suspected bio-terrorism links came out and locked down access to his room at the hotel, which was a problem, because Aunt D came back with extra intel that it was suspected that Lafleur had a list of all the agents, specifically Fulcrum agents, that he'd been dealing with, and it was believed to be located somewhere in his hotel room.

They considered a number of options, but Chuck was fed up with what was happening, so he just looked at Sarah and Casey and said "FBI IDs" and got on the computer to insert records into the FBI system to show that FBI Special Agents Powers, O'Connell and Coburn had been tasked with searching Lafleur's room to gather any evidence of Lafleur's activities.

He probably should have changed into a more appropriate suit, but he was already wearing one, so he decided that it would do. As he was finished long before Sarah and Casey had had time to get changed, grab their (and Chuck's) FBI IDs and come back down, he went to the armoury to get the appropriate sidearms for FBI wear. Before he did that, though, he told Vicky that she'd been perfect at the restaurant (because she had), and politely suggested that she, Carina and Zondra might like to go and change into something more comfortable, and less distracting. That had them all laughing, and they made a contest out of who could embarrass him the most as they left him with hugs and kisses.

When Vicky walked in, trying without much luck to undo the tie at the back of her neck for the dress, Emma made her sit down at the dining table (Rick and Vicky had been offered the last two apartments when they came on board, but they'd chosen to share with Bry and Emma and had been welcomed with open arms, Emma had pretty much adopted all the girls since she'd moved in anyway). As she was working on the knot, Emma asked how it went and Vicky laughed "Great, when Chuck saw us charging at him he got all flustered."

Emma laughed too "Well that's not too surprising given the sight you would have been giving him in this dress, it hardly covers a thing, aren't you glad I made you wear underwear now?" Vicky blushed a bit at that and said "Yeah" before Emma continued. "It's sweet to see how flustered he gets with that sort of thing, when he's like that, it's hard to believe all the women he slept with."

Just then she got the knot undone and Vicky held the top of the dress up as she turned to say "Thanks, just how many women DID he sleep with, anyway?" but Emma shook her head "He won't say, to avoid upsetting Sarah, but from what Ellie, Bry and Diane have told me, it was hundreds, at least." Vicky shook her head at that "It doesn't seem possible, the guy he is around us, but when he turned it on to prove a point, I would have gladly done anything he wanted, so I can believe it."

* * *

In Lafleur's hotel room, they were drawing a blank until Sarah found a renaissance period Venetian puzzle box stashed away behind the spare bed linen in a cupboard (well she knew that she'd found a box, Chuck told her what it actually was). Casey was about to break it open but Chuck stopped him, saying that this type of thing was his speciality, and that the box was too rare and beautiful to smash.

As he was working on the locking mechanism, he explained to them that it was using a Fibonacci sequence, it was the type of thing that spies used back in the renaissance period, and even with the lecture he had it open in less than thirty seconds.

All that was in the box was a pair of antique opera glasses, but as he was looking them over, he noticed that the handle moved, so he separated it from the glasses. When he did so, he saw that coming out of the end of the handle were four irregularly spaced pins, and as he was looking at the pins he got an information flash.

"Ah guys, this is a key. A key to an old school lock box. The Culper Ring used to use stuff like that as dead drops to pass information during the Revolutionary War days."

Casey took the key off him to have a look at it, and then asked the $64,000 question. "OK, this is the key, but where's the lock box?" They all looked stumped for a while and then Chuck had a eureka moment and smiled as he held up the Opera glasses to ask "Do you think there may be a reason that the key was hidden in the opera glasses?"

Chuck jumped back onto the computer again and did a search for any connections between Lafleur and anything to do with opera, and came up with a private box that his family maintained in a theatre in San Francisco. Given that it would take them most of the day to drive to and from San Francisco, Chuck got into the system and used his SAC authority to organise a plane to take them up to San Francisco first thing in the morning, and then bring them back when they were done, and they all went to bed.

In the morning, they were back in the guise of FBI agents. When they got to the theatre, their badges and Casey's hulking presence got them inside without any real trouble. Then, once they got into the Lafleur family's box, it didn't take that long really to discover the compartment that the key unlocked hidden under a loose carpet tile.

When he opened the compartment in the floor, Chuck extracted another box, a fair bit larger than the puzzle box, from there and put it on the seat next to him. He looked up at Sarah and Casey before drawing a breath and opening the lid or the box.

Seeing the digital counter that immediately started counting down, Casey shouted "It's a bomb!" and went to grab Chuck, but Chuck held up a hand to stop him and told him to shut up. Most of the box was taken up with a collection of wooden blocks that had what was obviously a jumbled up musical score painted on them.

Taped inside the lid of the box was a program for La Traviata, and Chuck knew at once what the score should be, as soon as that clicked he started plucking the blocks out of the box and rearranging them until the score for the reprise for Violetta's death scene was properly displayed, and the counter stopped (with just seven seconds left on the clock, but he wasn't going to think about that). The other thing that happened when the puzzle was solved was that a compartment next to the timer popped open, to show a plugged in thumb drive, which Chuck promptly unplugged, as this had to be what they were looking for.

Until he pulled the mechanism apart and examined it, he couldn't be sure what would have happened when the counter reached zero, it could have wiped the thumb drive, but considering that Lafleur was going great lengths to hide it, and the people that he was most likely hiding it from were Fulcrum, Chuck's best bet was that it was meant to send the contents of the thumb drive somewhere, probably to the authorities, if someone had opened the box without being able to solve the puzzle in time.

The thing was, he couldn't take the chance, it could have, in fact, been a bomb, or it could have wiped out the list that they were looking for, so he had to solve the puzzle to stop whatever was meant to happen from happening.

With that, he gave the thumb drive to Sarah to put in her purse and made sure that there wasn't anything else in there before he closed and relocked the floor compartment, putting the floor tile back before he stood to hand Sarah the key as well. Then, closing the lid on the box, he picked it up and they departed.

They were back in L.A. less than two hours later, and after carefully scanning the thumb drive for any malware, they went to open it. The thumb drive was heavily encrypted, but with the enhancements Chuck had made to his father's cracking programs, they got through the encryption within ten minutes. As they were scrolling through the list of agents (which, of course, included Jill), the Fulcrum Intersect was giving Chuck repeated confirmations of what they were seeing on-screen, along with a massive headache.

As soon as they'd confirmed that they had what they were looking for, they got onto Aunt D to tell her that they had the list of Fulcrum agents, and that she could arrange for Jill to be transferred from the NSA's facility in L.A. where Casey had had her locked away to whatever black site she wanted to bury her in.

She was a bit concerned about how callous Chuck was when he said that, until he reminded her that Jill had almost been laughing when she told him that Lafleur was being killed to shut him up, Lafleur may or may not have deserved his fate, but she definitely did.

With that, she said that she'd organise the transfer straight away, but Chuck advised her to wait until she had the list so she could make sure that no-one involved was Fulcrum. She nodded at that, commenting that this was going to be difficult, having to check to see whether anyone was Fulcrum before they let them near anything important, so Sarah interjected with a comment of her own. "Well, we'll have to get rid of Fulcrum then, won't we?" The looks on everyone's faces as they nodded in agreement with that were grim.


	19. Fletch

**A clarification on "our Chuck" and the seduction issue, in this 'verse he was taught all the tricks by Roan when he was but a boy and showed a real talent for it. When he had all those girls coming onto him when he was young, he used it to try and give them what he thought they wanted and it all went out of control for a while (OK, for years).**

 **Finding out that he was a dad was a real eye opener for him, though, and he reined all that in then, because when he stopped to look at it, he sorta felt that it was using girls to do that. After he met Sarah and found what it's like when you find the real thing, he stopped using "the power" altogether (except to have an innocent interlude with La Ciudad) because he didn't like manipulating anyone that way, and he couldn't bring himself to string them along when there was no future in it (because in the back of his head, he could only see a future with one person). He also gave up on the dating game after he caught Jill with Bryce, because that made him doubt the character of most people. So yeah, he'd always had the ability to do that from before he was twelve, but he'd stopped doing it ages ago.**

 **NB: Not getting any traffic stats for nearly a week is a bit aggravating, because the only way to tell whether anyone is looking at the story at all is if someone reviews or tags the story, so thanks guys, you know who you are.**

 **Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

* * *

One thing that wasn't an issue for the family was money, even after what they'd spent acquiring and doing up Quixote House, and the money that was going to fund Novatech's projects (Stefan, and Leslie when he came on board, were working to develop ground breaking technology for the team. The tactical armour suits they made gave far more protection than anything else available could and their stealth transports were getting close to being usable), they still had nearly $25 million from their original funds in their offshore accounts.

On top of that, between them Sarah, Carina and Zondra brought nearly $7 million into the family, and Carina's tips and reasoning for skimming some money from the takings from their operations resonated with them, with Chuck, Jeff and Anna's skills, it was a simple thing to pull off. Even Casey put in a million from his escape fund.

Where the real money came from, though, was when they dismantled criminal organisations. Between Stefan and Jeff, they'd heard enough conspiracy theories that they were starting to sound rational. That made them take a long, hard look at who they were dealing with, and the more they did, the more obvious it was how dirty and corrupt most of the government agencies and politicians were.

That was why, when the team's activities built to the point where they were starting to take down the organisations they were going up against, they came up with a new tactic. The fastest way to destabilise a group was to suddenly take away all their money, because when they couldn't pay for anything, they stopped being able to do much of anything, so they really concentrated on trying to find out what had happened to it.

That was the basis of the move that Chuck, Jeff and Anna came up with, they created mechanisms that emptied all the accounts of an organisation at once and transferred it all to, nowhere (at least that was what happened from what anyone else could see). While the agencies involved whined about not getting the funds that the organisations had to fund what they wanted to do (line their own pockets mainly), they couldn't argue that making all the money disappear in an instant worked perfectly to disorganise the target and made it easier and safer for the teams coming in to subdue and capture them, so the practice was reluctantly agreed to by them.

What actually happened took a lot more work, but it served the purpose of ensuring that the funds wouldn't be used for anyone's evil schemes, while funding the work that they were doing (and maintaining the team and the bases and equipment that they needed cost a LOT). What they actually did was break up the funds into umpteen smaller transactions and bounce them around the world a few times via myriad paths until they ended up in the accounts of the family's entities in tax havens around the world.

The hard part of that was the clean-up operation, as they had to follow all the transactions, hack into the banking systems and scrub any evidence of the transactions from the logs, so that it looked like they'd never occurred. That step involved getting into hundreds or thousands of banking systems and scrubbing evidence of hundreds of thousands of transactions to shift a few hundred million into their accounts without a trace. That stopped others from using the funds for less than wholesome purposes, and gave them what they needed to carry on the fight, which was a good thing in their view.

* * *

Chuck stepped into a new pile of trouble when he was looking into the upcoming Roark Instruments RIOS operating system, because his innocent excitement about trying out the new operating system (even though he already knew that at least half of their claims were crap, he was still enough of a nerd to get excited about it) was derailed when he got a number of flashes of information (presumably from the Fulcrum Intersect) that told him that the RIOS launch was being used to distribute targeted malware for the purpose of grabbing government information.

When he reported it, Aunt D brought in his father as the subject matter expert on Roark technology. Chuck tried to stop her, but she was adamant that his father could remain professional about this. When Stephen got to the fifteen minute mark of raving about what Roark had stolen from him without saying anything about RIOS though, Aunt D cut him off and asked him what he knew about RIOS, and she almost exploded when he said "RIOS? Nothing, he must have stolen that off someone else."

She gritted her teeth and asked why he hadn't told her that before? His answer was that she'd asked him to provide input on a Roark Instruments product that Charles had discovered a problem with, she didn't tell him it was RIOS. At that she said that she wouldn't waste any more of his time and cut the link. She'd been avoiding looking at Chuck standing there with his "I told you so" face on for over ten minutes, but she looked straight at him then and said "Not a word!"

Aunt D took a few minutes to calm herself and then asked for suggestions on how to proceed. Chuck told her that while they could get into the systems, it would be extremely difficult (he didn't like using the word "impossible") to defeat their intrusion detection systems from the outside before they could get alerts out, so he'd really have to go in to find the information they needed.

Sarah didn't like the idea of him being in the enemy camp by himself, so she asked "Wouldn't work better if someone went in with Chuck?" She was planning on that someone being her, so she wasn't too impressed when his response was "Yes, but who? That is is the problem. Jeff would be best because he could reverse engineer the code to help us determine what they're going after, but he's too old to be believable for a new hire in a place like Roark Instruments. Anna and I are the only ones who could get in there without setting off too many alarm bells."

While everyone was thinking about that Chuck turned to Sarah and kissed her saying "Sorry, I know what you meant but we just can't pull that off with a place like this." She nodded as she rested her forehead on his chest, she didn't like it, at all, but she understood and had to accept that he was right.

Chuck looked at Anna and she rolled her eyes "Of course, I'm in, so, how are we going to do this?" That was Chuck's chance to roll his eyes, so he brought up the RI site and checked on what positions they were advertising, sending applications in for the two of them.

He also noted that RI was holding a release presentation for RIOS in a few days at RI headquarters and registered Jeff, Rick, Sarah, Carina and Zondra to attend that (it would at least get them in the door, and hopefully, if they didn't have this cracked by then, they could get Jeff access to the code. This way, they'd have the other four to help fight their way out of there, as the need to do so would pretty much be a given if they made a move against Fulcrum in RI).

Of course, it was going to take a hell of a lot effort for them to tone their appearance down to something that would be believable as rabid nerds, eager to see the latest tech offering, and quite frankly he didn't think that Sarah COULD tone down her looks enough to be believable, but she would have killed him (or at least inflicted a good deal of pain on him) if he'd tried to keep her out of this, so he did the sensible thing and included her.

Unfortunately, Chuck was concentrating so much on putting together a viable plan to get them in, and hopefully out, safely, that he didn't note that his father was sitting on the system, watching what he was doing. If he had, things may have gone a little differently.

They still didn't know how Fulcrum got into RI, but to insert the malware into RIOS, they pretty much had to have control of the development process, so they must have some senior people in there.

As expected, due to the last minute push for the RIOS release, Chuck and Anna started right away as soon as they'd had their interviews. That meant that they'd be in there for nearly two days before the presentation where RIOS was released to the world.

The fact that he would be working for an airhead who had somehow graduated from Stanford the year before was a bit galling to Chuck (the guy was like Devon had been, so the very fact that he'd managed to pass was very suspicious), but it was hardly the worst cover job he'd had, and it would only be a couple of days, he could bite his tongue that long.

Unfortunately, while they were managing to slip blocks of the RIOS code out to Jeff to get him to work on it, they weren't having much luck identifying the Fulcrum elements of the organisation, they were hiding pretty well. Chuck could get into all the file servers, but there was nothing stored on the central systems that looked that suspicious.

The calibre of the most of the RI staff made Chuck wonder how they'd managed to be considered the leaders in technology (maybe there was something to what his father said after all?), but it meant that he and Anna could appear to be very productive, and still have most of their time left to hunt around the RI systems for the malware and Fulcrum evidence, so he'd take that silver lining.

The only news of note that they got was that Ted, as Roark insisted that everyone call him, was known to all the girls who worked in RI as Fletch, because he was a fuckin' letch and no girl was safe anywhere near him. When Anna passed that on, Sarah and the others just said "Well yeah, you can tell that just by looking at him!"

Stefan and Marjan were on the line for that discussion and Marjan chimed in to say that the bastard had always been like that, Graham had forced Stephen to accept Roark into the team back in the day, and he was always coming on to her, until eventually she'd broken his wrist when he'd stuck his hand up her skirt. She sounded happy as she told them that he'd never bothered her after that, but that may have been because of what she was telling him she'd do to him if he ever came near her again while she stood on his broken wrist and slowly twisted her foot to grind the broken bones together.

Rick was a little disturbed by the way the girls lit up when she was recounting that story, and he couldn't understand why Chuck was grinning like he enjoyed it as much as the girls did, their boss was a strange guy, incredible, but strange.

The day of the presentation, they still didn't have a fix for the malware in the system, or a solid lead on the Fulcrum link. Chuck had prepared a remote access device that was set up to access any device on the RI network, and he'd attach the device to network inside RI when he got to the office. Any of them with a suitable WiFi device inside of the RI building would be able to access this device, and with the appropriate command they could crash all the servers and databases on the RI network.

The systems would be crashed in such a way that would ensure that it took hours, if not days, to recover them, because there would be corrupt data all over the system. This way, they should be able to stop the release of RIOS for at least a day, probably more, and that should give them long enough to clean the malware out of it, so it would then be safe to release to the world.

As someone who knew quite well what impact something like that would have, Chuck was going to try to stop the release by other methods, but the device was going to be there in case he couldn't manage to do so by any other less destructive ways.

In the lead up to the release presentation, Chuck kept trying to catch Roark to tell him about the malware so he'd stop the release. Eventually, he barged through Roark's entourage just before he was due to go up on stage and tried to get him to understand, but Roark called him a crackpot and told the security guys to throw him out.

The others heard the whole thing over the mic that Chuck was wearing, so they all had their WiFi devices ready as Roark came up on stage. They tried to give him a chance to cancel the release, but when it was obvious that he had no intention of doing so, they sent the commands to crash the systems (Chuck had designed it so that didn't matter how many initiation commands came through, that way if something was trying to block the signal, as long as one got through it would work).

Roark went off at the aide who was trying to get his attention as he was lapping up the attention he was getting on-stage, because having someone calling to him and ruining his big moment when he was just about to hit the button to release RIOS was NOT something he appreciated. Roark waved at security to take the guy away, struck what he thought was a dramatic pose and pressed the button, but the screens didn't light up with the spectacular display that they were supposed to, so he pressed it again, and then started stomping around the stage pounding on the button, trying to get the release started.

Eventually it dawned on him that a tubby middle aged man in a loud Hawaiian shirt stomping around the stage like a five year old throwing a tantrum wasn't exactly presenting the tech god image that he was trying for, so he turned and ran off the stage, screaming for someone to tell him why the Hell his release hadn't worked!

One of the Public Relations people got up on stage and told the audience. "Hey guys, due to unforeseen technical difficulties, the RIOS release will be delayed for a short time. To save you the bother of sitting around waiting while our tech gurus fix the problem, because we can't be certain just how long it would take them to fix it, this live presentation is being cancelled. As soon as the gurus get the problem fixed, we'll send out alerts to the contacts that you provided on your forms, and we'll run the presentation on-line, so if you'd like to head out without trampling any small children, we'll get back to you in a jiffy."

Sarah, Anna, Rick, Carina and Zondra checked the status of the systems via Chuck's device and confirmed that they were all destroyed, so they sent the commands to the device to make it self destruct by frying itself. That way, when Roark's people found it, as they would sooner or later, it wouldn't tell them anything about who'd set it there.

Chuck was waiting or them when they got back to the cars, and after a suitable reunion between him and Sarah (as it had been HOURS since they'd seen each other), they headed back to Quixote House.

Back at Quixote House, Chuck started monitoring everything going on around RI. The frantic chatter over all communications media about what the hell happened to wipe out their systems and how it would take days, at least, to rebuild them brought a smile to his face, the evidence of unabated system activity in other parts of the RI campus soon removed that smile though.

Trying to monitor everything that was going on, he soon outstripped the computer setup in his office downstairs, so he told the others that he'd be in Dulcinea's Boudoir and went upstairs. (Dulcinea's Boudoir was the nameplate he put up in the Penthouse workroom back when Sarah kept making cracks about him being like Don Quixote. At first it had pissed her off, but after a while she decided that it was cute and she liked it, so it stuck. The other girls had agreed, so they adopted the tag boudoir for the workrooms in their apartments, the guys just went study for their's.)

When Sarah came upstairs, Chuck was using all three computers and nearly every screen was displaying different aspects of what was going on at RI. The systems on the general RI network were mostly down, a fair number of them were in the process being rebuilt, but there was very little activity going on. In contrast with that, a small number of systems in another part of RI were going flat out, and this was what worried him, because the architecture of those systems looked rather like an Intersect environment.

Another thing that worried him, but he was too focussed on the RI issues to put two and two together about, was that when he tried to contact his father to ask him about it, he couldn't find him, or his mother.

Chuck and Sarah had a spirited debate about the fact that Chuck was determined to get into the area where he was seeing the computer activity and find out if it was an Intersect facility. Eventually Sarah agreed, IF she, Casey, Carina and Zondra came along. Given that his argument against her coming along was exactly what her's was FOR coming along (neither of them wanted the other to be in danger), Chuck capitulated, and they called the others to come up.

As soon as they heard what Chuck's plans were, they insisted on coming along even before Sarah could make a case for it, so they geared up for the incursion. While Chuck's pass had been taken off him when he was thrown out, he'd already cloned it and modified it for an all access pass on the first day (and had tested it and confirmed that it worked on the second day), so he made up extra copies of the pass keys for Carina and Zondra (he'd made three up to start). To make it safer, he also asked Jeff and Anna to come along and provide support from the command centre in the van.

After hours, they slipped into RI and clipped Chuck's remote access devices to the security camera system wiring back there so that Jeff and Anna could take it over and loop the footage when they were in range of the cameras. Unfortunately, they found that the all access passes didn't work for the doors going into the area that Chuck wanted to see, so they had a bit of a delay as Chuck had to hack his way into the access systems there to get them through.

When they finally got to the target area, there was a scuffle going on in front of them (if couldn't be called a fight, as the intruder was trying to get free, but wasn't trying to actually fight them). They started to hide, so they could check out the area after the guards took the intruder away, when Chuck heard him speak, and it was his father!

Chuck drew his pistols and went to attack the guards, but as soon as he stepped out, the big, shaven headed man who was apparently in charge of the group that had captured his father grabbed him and quickly pulled him in front of him, putting a pistol with the safety off to his head. What he said then was a surprise though. "I'm sorry Orion, I'd like to let you go with your son, but I have my orders, and they're to secure you for my employer."

Chuck looked him in the eye. "So you'll kill him rather than let him escape with us?" The man nodded solemnly, "It would be unprofessional not to, I'm sorry, but I can't let him go."

At that moment, the doors off to the side opened and Ted Roark swaggered though "Vincent, you've got him! Great, I knew that I made the right choice in hiring you." "Stephen, good to see you, I've been looking for you for ages."

It was only then that he took in the gun that Vincent was holding to Stephen's head. "Vincent, what are you doing, don't you know I need him?" "Why are you holding a gun to his head anyway?"

Vincent nodded at Chuck and the others, and when Roark saw them he scuttled over to try and hide behind some of the men. "What are you waiting for, kill them!"

"It's not necessary Mr Roark, as long as we're holding Orion, they won't attack us."

"What do you mean, why won't they attack?"

"Because that's his son, and he'll do whatever it takes to keep his father safe."

Roark peeked at Chuck over the shoulder of the man in front of him "You, you tried to stop the RIOS release!" "I don't care whether they'll attack or not, kill them!"

"No Mr Roark, they'll let us go to keep him safe, so there's no reason to kill them."

Chuck's dad spoke at that point. "Listen to the man Roark, if you kill my son or his friends I'll never work on your Intersect, and that's what you want me for, isn't it?"

Roark drew himself up to his full height and made a show of straightening out his shirt. "Alright, if that's what it takes to get you to finish my Intersect, your son lives, you have my word."

Vincent nodded past them and said to Chuck "If you and your friends would back up past that door, please."

Chuck kept his eyes locked on Vincent's as he backed up until Vincent said "Thank you" and motioned one of his men to go over to close and seal the door

With that, Roark waved the men with him to take Stephen away, and when he thought he was out of earshot told Vincent "As soon as we're out of here, kill them!"

Vincent looked at him in distaste as he shook his head "No Mr Roark, that wasn't the deal that was made, they live."

Just then Stephen stopped and turned to call out to Roark "Roark, just in case you try any tricks, I won't start anything until I've called my son and made sure that he and his friends are all at home, safe. If they aren't, you won't get a thing out of me!"

Roark started swearing under his breath and then spat at Vincent. "Alright! You can let them live, but make sure that you hold them here until we're well on our way!"

Vincent just nodded and Roark turned and stormed off. After that, Vincent just stood there and watched them through the glass in the door for ten minutes, then nodded at the door behind them as it opened, indicating that they were free to go.

Chuck looked at the door, then back at Vincent, nodding in appreciation, as his honourable actions had brought the best possible solution about, Casey also nodded at him, out of respect for his actions, and after Vincent had responded, they all left.

When they got to the van, Chuck's mother was there, asking "Where's your father?"

When Chuck told her that Roark had him, she turned to run into the building, but Chuck's hand darted out to clamp onto her shoulder and slam her into the side of the van.

"Don't be any more stupid than you've already been, they're gone! And thanks to your refusal to include anyone in our plans, Roark has him to work on his Intersect."

"Give Carina your keys and tell her where the car is, you're coming with us. Casey, make sure she doesn't do anything on the way back, tranq her if you have to!"

When his mother started struggling, Chuck just tranqed her, throwing her into the van and telling the rest of them to get in before climbing into the front passenger seat as Sarah was already in the driver's seat.

Back at Quixote House, Chuck told Casey to lock his mother in a holding cell and went upstairs to start tracking Roark and his father. He also started searches on everything to do with Vincent Smith, because that man didn't seem to fit into the same mould as the rest of Fulcrum, and what was in the Intersect wasn't telling him much.

A few hours later, the only thing of possible use that he'd managed to sift out of the communications from Roark, RI, and possibly Fulcrum was a reference to Black Rock, which the Fulcrum Intersect told him was a Fulcrum facility somewhere near Barstow California. Sarah watched him getting more and more frustrated for another hour and a half before she managed to convince him to leave the searches running and come to bed.

The next morning, there were no more signs of where Roark had taken his father, and satellite imagery wasn't showing anything but a drive-in theatre at the location that the Fulcrum Intersect had given him for the Black Rock facility. Chuck had Casey get his mother out of the holding cell and got Aunt D on a video conference to discuss their way forward.

Chuck's mother started screaming at him that they didn't have time to just sit around talking, until he conspicuously placed a tranq pistol on the table and rested his hand next to it. She wasn't so far gone that she missed the clear message that was sending 'shut up and calm down or I'll tranq you again', so she settled down. The struggle she was having NOT to respond was patently obvious while he was recapping the message he'd sent to Aunt D the night before "My parents' stupidity has put us in a very bad position, obviously my father was further gone than we'd realised with his vendetta against Roark, but she (poking a thumb in his mother's direction) didn't do anything to stop him or warn us, she just went along with him."

"When we got into the restricted area of the RI site, where we were trying to confirm the indicators that they had an Intersect computer that was almost certainly Fulcrum's, my father had already been captured because he'd gone in there, alone, ahead of us."

"That was where we had the only good fortune to be found in this situation. The man who captured him, Vincent Smith, seems to be different from the rest of Fulcrum, he has intelligence and honour. When we arrived, he held a gun to Dad's head with the safety off to prevent us firing on them, as he knew that that would work because he recognised me as Orion's son."

"I believe that the regret he showed us when he told us that he had to take Dad was real (Casey grunted in agreement to that), and when Roark turned up and ordered him to kill us he refused, because the hostage situation made it unnecessary. Dad then made a deal with Roark that he'd work on his Intersect if we were allowed to leave safely, but after he sent Dad away Roark told Smith to kill us as soon as they were gone, but he refused because that wasn't the deal that Roark had made with Dad (I was lip reading through the door). Dad realised what Roark was probably doing and told Roark that he wouldn't touch a thing on the Intersect until he'd contacted me and had confirmation that we were all here and all safe."

"Smith released us after Roark had left with Dad, and we found Mom outside, she tried to run into the facility so I tranqed her. When we got back, I set up searches to try and find where he took him, but the only thing I got all night was a reference to Black Rock, and I can't see anything at the location from the satellites. So, we're here waiting for Dad's call, and once he's called, we're going out there to try and find Dad and get him back." He paused to look at his mother. "At the moment I'm inclined to leave Mom locked in a cell, so that she can't screw anything else up."

Aunt D looked disturbed by this news, but she chose her words carefully before she responded. "Chuck, you know that I want your father back, safe, as much as anyone (aside from you, Ellie and your mother, of course), but you must remember how important you, and what's in your head, are. I'd order you to stay back and let the others search for your father if I thought it'd do any good, but I won't waste my breath. As you're going into an unknown Fulcrum facility, I do request that you take at least two strike teams with you to deal with whatever you come up against." She paused for a moment. "You may want to rethink your position on your mother, too, you know she's a damned good agent and could help you."

Chuck looked at the screen for a while before nodding. "I agree about the strike teams, I've sent a request in for two SEAL platoons from Coronado, they should be here soon, on Mom, though, normally I'd agree, but this time she isn't thinking straight, none of this would have happened if she'd just told us what Dad was planning, so I have to regard her as too unstable to risk trusting her here."

Mary was sitting there with tears streaming down her face as she listened to Chuck, because she knew he was right, she could have stopped this, and prevented Stephen being taken by Roark, if she'd told the others what he was doing, but she'd gone along with him even though she knew he wasn't making any sense. That didn't take away the hurt of listening to her son, her baby boy, talking about her like this though.

Sarah was watching Mary, and could almost feel the hurt that she was experiencing. She knew that Chuck wasn't doing this out of malice, he was trying to lock away all of his own feelings and handle this logically so that they had some hope of getting his father back in one piece, but that wasn't doing anything to spare his mother. She stood up and went to Mary, gently squeezing her shoulders. Mary looked up in gratitude and squeezed her hand as she continued to cry. Sarah looked across at Chuck and saw him looking back at her with pain in his eyes as he mouthed 'Thank you' to her and she mouthed back 'I love you'.

Chuck drew a breath to compose himself as he went on. "Aunt D, once we get Dad out, we need to deal with these facilities, can you get things set up for two strikes with conventional bunker busters?"

"I'll get the orders cut, why two strikes though?"

"The first one will be the Black Rock facility, I'd schedule two or three bunker busters for that one as we don't know how big that is, the second one is for the Intersect facility in the RI Campus here, one should do for that. Obviously it's not properly functional yet, otherwise Roark wouldn't have needed Dad, but Roark's comments last night confirmed that it is an Intersect facility, and we need to wipe it out. I'll send you the co-ordinates for both after we finish here."

"Agreed, no word to anyone outside of the family on this, as the brass would want to capture the Intersect facility and make use of it, but we'll bomb that at the same time we do the other facility. I'll also arrange for NSA clean-up teams to be sent to both sites."

Just at that moment, Chuck's phone rang and he held his hand up for silence as he answered it on speaker "Hello?"

"Charles, are you alright?"

"Yes Dad, Vincent Smith let us all go after you left with Roark."

"Did you see your mother, is she alright?"

"Yes Dad, she's here with us."

"Stephen.. (Chuck pointed his finger at her to watch what she said) I'm fine, I hope to see you soon."

At that point Roark's oily voice intruded. "Mary, I haven't seen you in ages, do ya miss me?"

Mary looked a little ill at that thought. "Roark, do you remember what I told you I'd do to you if you came near me again (they clearly heard a gulp over the phone), well that's nothing compared to what I'll do to you if you harm my husband in any way, do you understand?"

There was a brief silence and then they heard Roark saying brusquely to Stephen "Well you've got your proof that I held up my side of the bargain, so build me my Intersect!" and the connection was broken.

Chuck looked at Casey, who nodded and went to check on the progress of the SEALs, and then turned to his mother. "Mom, if we bring you along, will you do exactly what you're told?"

She looked at him and shook her head "No, you were right with what you said, I can't be trusted not to let my emotions get in the way in this. I could endanger your father, and the rest of you, so you should leave me behind for this."

Chuck nodded, but came over to pull her into a hug, and she cried into his chest for a while before straightening and stepping back to say. "Please bring him back to us Charles." He nodded and kissed her in the forehead.

He looked around the conference room at each person, getting a nod from Sarah, Zondra, Carina, Bry, Rick and Vicky, and he knew that Casey was in, so they had eight, plus the 32 SEALs on their way. Jeff, Anna and Josie tried to argue that they should be coming, but he shook his head, this would be a combat mission, they didn't have the experience for something like this. Jeff and Anna pushed the issue and said that they still needed support to work the systems and coordinate between their teams, and he couldn't argue with that, so he gave in that far.

Casey came back in to say that the SEALs were thirty minutes out, so Chuck told him to give them a rendezvous point just out of L.A. on the road to Barstow to meet up at, and they all went to get geared up. They left in two vans ten minutes later, and when they reached the rendezvous point, the SEALs were already waiting for them in four vans.

They went over the parameters of the operation with the officers while they were there. They handed out copies of Stephen's picture, making it clear that his safe recovery was the primary target of the operation. One of the platoon Lieutenants had worked with Chuck before, and he was obviously concerned that Chuck wasn't behaving like he usually did, so Chuck took him aside and told him that the target was his father. Before they went back, Chuck indicated Sarah and asked him to make sure someone watched her back, the man had seen the matching wedding rings they were wearing and how they were together, so he just nodded.

When they got to the location outside of Barstow, they spent over fifteen minutes examining the apparently deserted drive-in theatre before they moved in, they'd been starting to think that the intel in the Fulcrum Intersect may have been wrong, until they found the first camera, then they concentrated on all the logical or viable camera placements as they circled the drive-in, and discovered twenty more, which added some credence to the idea that there was a base here.

They identified three cameras that could be reached without being exposed to any other cameras, and they went in to attach remote access devices to the wiring so that Anna and Jeff could get in and take control of the security camera system. Once Jeff confirmed that that was done, they went in with sensors to locate active electrical equipment, and discovered an entrance under a bouncing pony in the kids' play area.

After a bit of an argument, Chuck gave in and let Casey and Bry go in with the first two fire teams to breach the facility. After they'd secured the entry area, Chuck, Sarah, Carina and Zondra went in with their own fire teams, splitting up to search the facility for Stephen. Rick and Vicky stayed back in reserve with the last two fire teams, and they were also guarding Jeff and Anna in the control van.

As they went through the facility, they took out anyone that they encountered, as that was the only way to prevent them raising an alarm. They only used suppressed weapons to avoid exposing themselves.

It was Sarah who found Stephen, she reported it to the others and then, once she'd confirmed that he was OK, grabbed his shirt and jerked him in close to hiss at him "If Chuck gets hurt in this, I'll kill you!" When he almost shouted at her in indignation, she slapped him, hard, to shut him up and hissed at him "Shut up you idiot, or you'll bring them down on us!"

Once she'd picked the lock on the shackles that kept him at his workstation, she indicated for two of her fire team to get him out of there and ran a rear guard action with the other two. When they got back to the ladder they came into the facility by, Chuck was waiting with his fire team, but when Stephen tried to talk to him, he just hissed "Quiet!" and pushed him onto the ladder that two of Sarah's men had already gone up. He made Sarah go up after him, but followed her as that was the only way to avoid arguments.

When they and Sarah's fire team were up top, they confirmed, again, that Casey, Bry and Carina were still downstairs with their fire teams, along with Chuck's fire team. Chuck gave in to Sarah and they took Stephen back to the control van, leaving Sarah's fire team to secure the top of the ladder.

Back in the van, Chuck called for the flights with the bunker busters to take off, telling them that they had to wait for confirmation from him that his teams were out before they executed the order. Over the next five minutes, he got confirmation that everyone was up out of the facility and were heading back to the command van, so he sent the order to drop the bunker busters, with the clarification coordinates for the spread of the three for Black Rock to include the area that they'd determined to be downstairs.

They stepped out of the van to watch the bombs dropping. Three F-16s came through at low altitude and released their bombs simultaneously. A few seconds later the drive-in and a fair sized area around it rose up, and then when it came back down, it all subsided, with the movie screen collapsing into the hole. None of them said anything as they watched everything collapsing in on itself, but after the noises had stopped, Chuck turned to his father and asked "Was Roark here?" in an almost mechanical voice.

Stephen was confused, just saying "What?", and he wasn't any better when Chuck grabbed him by the shoulder and started shaking him violently with each word "Was, Ted, Roark, In, There?" (pointing at the massive subsidence in front of them). Sarah grabbed Chuck and tried to calm him, while Casey pried Chuck's hand off Stephen's shoulder, only to grab the shoulder himself and get in Stephen's face, asking whether he'd seen Roark here before they rescued him.

Still dazed, Stephen shook his head, but then said "No, wait, yes, he was there demanding that I get the Intersect finished half an hour or so before you turned up." Chuck locked gazes with Casey and then hopped into the van, to bring up satellite imagery for the the past hour and a half, scanning through it as quickly as he could, and no vehicles had left here in that time, so it looked like they'd gotten Roark with the strike, too.

They thanked the SEALs for their help, and left them there to secure the site until the NSA clean-up crews arrived. They also left the details of Roark and everyone else of interest who they should be keeping an eye out for while they were waiting, and also for the clean-up crews to look for.

With that, they packed up and headed back to L.A. and Quixote House.


	20. Leverage

**In case anyone wondered why Stephen and Mary haven't featured much in the story, this may explain it.**

 **Usual disclaimer, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

Things were rather strained when they got back to Quixote House, as Chuck's father was objecting to the way he'd been treated, especially by his son and daughter in law. Chuck and Sarah just walked out and Aunt D and Mary started screaming at him, while Rick had to hold Casey back as he lunged at him for what he'd said about them.

The only thing that got through to him was when Mary turned to face the screen and told Diane to go and put him in a black site somewhere before he killed the rest of the family. He asked her how she could say something like that? She turned on him then, saying "Charles, his wife and the rest of them risked their lives to save you because you were too crazy and childish to act like an adult, and I was too stupid to stop you, and now you abuse them for saving you? What happened to the man I married?" With that she walked out.

Aunt D looked at him with a little sympathy as he had his head in his hands and then said "Let's look at what happened, shall we?" Stephen looked up and nodded hesitantly, so she started.

"The blame for the first mistake is mine, Chuck tried to stop me bringing you in on something to do with Roark, but I overruled him, I was wrong." He didn't appreciate that, but bit his tongue.

"The next is on you though, you were snooping in his system when he was planning their incursion to check out the Intersect facility at RI and decided in the midst of your delusions that you could do it better, didn't you?" Stephen nodded.

"So you, and Mary, decided to fly across the country so that you can try and break into a secure facility ahead of Chuck and his team of professionals who are planning to do a proper incursion into the facility, without telling them what you're doing, and obviously you tripped the alarms when you went in, given that you were caught."

"So now you've set off the alarms and screwed up their operation so they've been exposed to Fulcrum (which they probably wouldn't have been if it weren't for you because they're very good at what they do) and they can't engage the enemy because you've gone and provided Fulcrum with a hostage to tie their hands. Am I getting this right so far?" Stephen nodded again.

"They have to let Fulcrum have you, because the only alternative is for you to be killed, but Chuck somehow manages to locate the hidden facility a hundred miles away that you've been taken to, and gets two platoons of Navy SEALs in overnight to support him and his team. So they break into the Fulcrum facility, without being detected this time, they get you out safely and destroy two Fulcrum facilities. And you're objecting to the way that Chuck and Sarah didn't show YOU enough respect?"

Her tone was incredulous at the end of her statement. Stephen wasn't saying a word, just staring at the table a foot in front of his face. Eventually he spoke, very quietly. "I think I must have had another breakdown, I can't think of any other reason for doing what I've done. I don't know what pushed me over the edge this time, but it's obvious that Mary is right, I should be locked up because I'm endangering everyone with my actions." With that he started to stand from the table until the General said "I hope you're going to explain this and apologise to Chuck and Sarah before you do anything else?"

Stephen shook his head, "They don't want to hear my excuses, they don't want anything to do with me."

At that, Ellie's voice blasted out from the doorway "Don't you fucking dare! You don't know enough about either of them to have ANY idea what they're thinking, because you've never bothered making an effort to find out anything about them! And I don't know why, but Chuck loves you!"

She strode across the room until she was looking her father in the eye. "If you leave here without straightening this out with them, you're dead to me!"

Mary called out from behind her "Eleanor, you can't say that!"

She whirled on her mother "No, you both fucked this up, and you both need to FIX it, NOW."

She turned back on her father. "You probably have no idea about this because you don't APPROVE of what he does for the government, but just about every day, his life is on the line, as is Sarah's and the rest of them, and Chuck has hundreds, if not thousands, of lives in his hands most of the time! If he has to try to do that now, because of the state what you've done has left him in, people will die!"

Stephen started to say "I think you're exag.." when she cut him off with "Exaggerating?" and turned to the screen "AM I exaggerating General?"

"No, you are not Eleanor, the operations that Chuck runs with his three groups have warded off catastrophes, wars and invasions, and they do this sort of thing on a weekly basis, that was a large part of the reason that Chuck and Sarah couldn't have a honeymoon, because there's ALWAYS some national security issue that they're needed for to be addressed."

She looked at two of her oldest friends, the parents of two of the three most incredible people that she'd ever met, and she couldn't help thinking that they were idiots.

"Mary, Stephen, how could you not know this? I've been telling you what Chuck and Ellie have been doing for the last fourteen years. You were at Chuck and Sarah's wedding, where you met the President and many of the most important people in this country. They'd all made the effort to come right across the country to attend a secret wedding in an out of the way location, purely because they wanted to be there to honour a couple of the most amazing people that they'd ever met, and show respect for that they've done for this country."

"You were also there at the White House when Chuck was made the youngest Admiral, by seventeen years, in the history of the United States, and he and Sarah were inducted into the command that was created specifically for them, because they're the only ones who can do what they do. How can you NOT realise how important they and what they do are?"

Mary looked confused "What are you talking about Diane? Charles told us that you were just re-organising the group and that was just a ceremony that they had to attend?"

Diane looked at her as if she'd grown a second head. "Do you really think the President of the United States, all four Secretaries related to the Defense Department and all of the top brass of the military and intelligence services would cram themselves into the Oval Office for a simple little re-organisation ceremony? Didn't you notice the uniform and medals he was wearing? And more importantly, how do you not know by now how much Chuck downplays anything he does or gets?"

"Chuck has been promoted to the same rank I am and commands as many people as I do in his military role, and have you even bothered to register that he's the Special Agent in Charge for both the Special Projects and Intersect teams, so he's your boss?"

"Why wouldn't he tell us any of this?"

Ellie cut in again "Didn't you listen to her? He downplays anything to do with himself! You're supposed to be his parents, our parents, but you haven't made any effort to find out anything about us since you walked away from us when he was twelve because that's what was best for YOU."

She turned to the screen "General, I think we need to suspend operations in all three groups until we can help Chuck get himself straightened out, they've damaged him and he can't operate at his normal levels under that type of trauma."

Aunt D nodded. "I think you're right, I'll get Dr Dreyfus into an F-15 to get him over there ASAP, you make sure those two stay there, lock them up if you have to."

"Colonel Casey, would you mind helping Captain Charlemagne walk Admiral Carmichael's parents through his achievements and awards for the past fourteen years, please?"

"No problem, Ma'am."

"You may like to include Captain Charlemagne and Colonel Carmichael in the update, too."

"Yes Ma'am."

Ellie turned to Casey. "John, could you start, please? I want to check on Chuck and Sarah to see how they are."

Casey nodded, and Ellie shot a look at her parents and added "Keep it simple" before walking out.

Ellie went up to the Penthouse and found them getting dressed in their uniforms, so she stopped them, telling them that it had been agreed that they needed to take a break because of the shit downstairs (she decided to hold off on mentioning Dr Dreyfus to Chuck, though she did tell Sarah). Chuck resisted at first, but Sarah convinced him that they needed it, and he gave in.

Chuck checked with the girls, but they already had something planned, so they got into Sarah's Porsche and headed out to see some of the wineries.

When Ellie got back downstairs, Casey had gotten to the point where she and Chuck had finished most of their special ops training and had gotten certified on supersonic jets. Her parents were railing at Bry (who had come down to join in) and Diane about putting them at risk that way, and she let them have it.

"What, so we were supposed to sit at home and do nothing because you were too busy living the good life in Washington?"

"Eleanor, it wasn't like that…"

"It was EXACTLY like that, yes, when Chuck was twelve, he (pointing at her father) needed treatment, but six months later you'd moved to D.C. and were leading relatively normal lives WITHOUT YOUR CHILDREN!"

Mary went to say something but the look she got from Ellie shut her up.

"Aunt D and Uncle Bry tried to help, but they weren't here most of the time, so I was trying to raise Chuck by myself, while you, our loving parents, were happily living the life over there without us." "You weren't here when Chuck was sleeping with every girl in California, you weren't here when we found out that he'd become a father to three beautiful girls when he was thirteen, and you weren't here when he was taking on responsibilities that most men two or three times his age couldn't have, because he was making a difference."

"These dangerous activities that you're complaining about were about the only fun and release he was getting, because being the biggest slut in California wasn't helping him on that front. He's damned good at that, and he was getting respect from people who he didn't think were obligated to say those things to him."

She turned to Bry and Casey to point out that Chuck admired and respected them, but he'd always thought that they were just telling him those things to support him and make him feel better. They nodded at that, because he'd made that clear. Then she turned back to her parents.

"Yes, those missions were dangerous, all the more so because he was trying to get recognition from others that he wasn't getting from his parents, so he was trying to prove himself worthy. It always terrified me when he went on those missions, because he'd come back with wounds, frayed at the edges, but he'd come back alive, thinking that he'd accomplished something. What he was doing on those missions earned him, Mowgli, a reputation so big that most still think that he's a legend, and it also earned him more medals and battlefield promotions than anyone else has in that period."

"The thing was, in his "day job" (or rather night job, because he's always worked on that side through the night), the one he didn't think mattered, he was also a legend, because he was doing things that no-one else could."

Aunt D cut in from the screen with "You BOTH were doing those things Ellie, don't forget that!"

Ellie waved that off as she went on. "When he was in his early teens, he was shouldering responsibilities that most grown men couldn't handle, and I don't know where he got that from because it obviously wasn't from either of YOU."

Casey stepped in at that point. "The thirteen year old Chuck that I met was a man, a man who you're damned proud to stand beside, he stepped up to his responsibilities, did what he could to help others and always tried to do he right thing. He never backed down from that, he just kept taking on more and more. When he found out that he was a father, he made sure he was there for his children, he moved things around and worked more at night so that he could spend as much time as possible with them." This last was said as he looked disdainfully at Chuck's parents.

Ellie took it up again at that point. "While he was at Stanford, he drove home nearly every weekend to see the girls, so they wouldn't miss out like he had. Another thing that John didn't mention was that thanks to the cover lives we were made to live while we were here on our own, we both had to work after school and on weekends to show an income that could explain how we were paying the bills. Chuck started at that damned Buy More when he was fifteen, but as soon as he could get his license at sixteen we set him up with the computer business and the van so that he had a better cover job. That was all top of school and all the other work we had."

Aunt D interjected at that point. "Chuck actually turned CCE into quite a profitable venture, he made enough to more than pay off the setup costs, and had paid for a fair portion of the costs to establish the shop when he came back to L.A. so that it was an easy sell to justify turning it and the house over to him when he got the settlement from Buy More."

It was back to Ellie "When he came back to L.A. it was hard, because those two had destroyed his faith in people, the girls and his missions were the only breaks he had from working. He poured so much effort into CCE that they had trouble keeping up with the demand, even with him doing the work of three, and he spent all night every night working on the special projects stuff, because no matter how much work we put into it, and he did as much as the rest of us put together, but how much we got through, there was always a backlog." At that she turned and looked at the screen.

Aunt D nodded. "It was like what you were saying about CCE, the more you put through, the more interest spread in your work, and the more the demand increased." Ellie nodded at that.

"That went on for five years, until that bastard sent YOUR creation to Chuck, and Sarah came into our lives, and of all the changes since then, I think Sarah is the only truly good thing that's happened to him since then."

Her father started muttering something about "She's an agent, she can't be trusted." and Ellie screamed at him.

"Shut up you stupid man! Sarah, his wife, is the only one that I trust to what's right for Chuck." She looked at the screen. "Sorry Aunt D, I know that you care about Chuck, but you, Uncle Bry, and John, all have your duty as your prime directive, and you know that that's conflicted with Chuck's best interests more than once. Sarah is the only one who thinks of Chuck first at all times."

Aunt D looked a little hurt by what Ellie had said, but nodded to concede that what she said wasn't wrong.

With that, Ellie turned back on her parents "But YOU, you were supposed to be caring for him, for us, but you decided to enjoy the life that you wanted without the CIA on the other side of the country. Never mind the fact that your children needed you, you just ignored everything that I was trying to tell you, and Aunt D was trying to tell you."

She looked at Bry "Oh I know that the only reason that you didn't try as well was HIS (waving at her father) petty jealousies about the feelings he thought Mom had for you because you were, are, a better man. He was too tied up in himself to see that Mom was never anything more than a friend to you."

She stopped for a moment. "But while I'm doling this out, it's about time you gave up on that bitch who divorced you and took your daughter away because you were away serving your country, and tell the one you really care about what you feel for her, I know that her daughter would gladly welcome having you as a father, as well as having another sister."

Mary was trying to refute what Ellie was saying. "Eleanor, it wasn't like that, your father needed me...", but Ellie cut her off. "For the last time, it's Ellie, and yes, he needed you at the start when he was a headcase in the asylum, but he'd improved enough to function around other people by the time you two had moved to the other side of the country, and we were waiting for the call to come over there to be with you, but IT...NEVER...CAME!"

She stopped briefly to try and compose herself "You were enjoying your life without worrying about your children so much you just closed your ears when we tried to tell you about the problems that Chuck was having, how he was sleeping his way through the girls of California from before he was a teenager, how he fathered at least three children, probably more, when he was twelve, how he struggled to fit in because he was forced to pretend to be a kid living with his sister who had to work to help pay the bills, how he was working himself to death in the vain hope that his parents would see and be proud of him."

Her eyes bored into her mother's as she said this, as she'd given up on her father. Mary was crying her eyes out again, because she knew that everything that Ellie was saying was true, she and Stephen had been enjoying a freedom that they'd never experienced and they didn't want to give that up.

So, they'd told themselves that their children were better off in California with Diane and Bry looking out for them, and they'd basically turned their backs on them. After a while the entreaties lessened and then stopped, and they'd told themselves that the problems were gone, when in fact everyone had just given up on them.

Ellie turned to Casey and Bry "John, Uncle Bry, can you tell these two what their son made himself into in spite of them, please? Tell them about the hero who won those medals, and the man who everyone relies on? Also, tell them about the amazing woman who cares more about him than they ever could, I've just got to get away from them for a while."

Before she left the room she looked at her father. "And if you feel the need to make any other stupid cracks about Sarah, just remember that while I'm not in Chuck, or Sarah's, or their (waving at Casey and Bry) league, I can hurt you!" Shifting her gaze to her mother "Maybe even you Mom, don't push me." With that she left.

Casey and Bry looked at each other and Casey smiled grimly, a few keystrokes brought up the picture of Chuck, Sarah and Ellie up on the big screen, and he zoomed in so it only showed them from the waist up. When he started to talk, though, he saw that Stephen was talking to Mary, so he slammed his hand down on the table and almost made him fall over backwards out of his chair.

Leaning over the table he growled at him "Your daughter asked us to explain this to you, and you WILL pay attention, or I'll be the one who hurts you, got it?" Stephen nodded as he shrank back and Casey turned to highlight areas of the screen with a laser pointer.

"As even you should be able to recognise, Chuck is a Rear Admiral in the Navy, a two star flag officer like the General, Sarah is a Colonel in the Air Force, and Ellie is a Captain the Navy, they're at the same rank as Bry and I, he's Army, I'm Marines. Now I expect that YOU, at least (looking at Mary) should be able to recognise these." (As he highlighted the top row of medals on Chuck's uniform.)

Mary's eyes widened, "But that's."

Bry nodded, "No-one has ever had all four of them before, he operates with all the services and as Ellie said, he IS a hero, he's done amazing things in the field, he's conquered impossible odds, rescued people from impossible situations, and has saved the day time and again, but that hasn't been without a price." He nodded to the screen and Casey highlighted the Purple Heart with a silver and two gold stars.

This was the first time she'd ever actually looked at the medals on Chuck's uniform, she'd just ignored them because she'd presumed that they were service medals like the ones that Eleanor (no, Ellie) had (though looking at her's now, they were very impressive, and she had a Silver Star medal too), but he had a frightening number of combat medals.

He'd been wounded in combat severely enough to qualify for the Purple Heart eight times, he'd received the Silver Star Medal six times, the Bronze Star Medal four times, Air Force Cross, Navy Cross, Distinguished Service Cross twice, and she didn't want to know what he did to get the Medal of Honor.

Looking at this, she realised that Ellie was right, she was a terrible mother, how could she have ignored all of this when it was right in front of her?

Stephen was looking confused beside her, he could tell that she could see something he couldn't, so he asked "Mary, what does that mean?"

She looked at him "It means that our son is a hero, a hero of epic proportions." adding "and apparently, so is our daughter in law", as she took in Sarah's medals. Bry didn't grunt like Casey did at that, but his expression when he nodded emphatically said 'it's about damn time you realised that!'

Stephen was still confused, "But how could that happen? We left them in California to lead a normal life."

"Exactly! We left them, we knew that they were doing analyst work for Diane, but we were so tied up with enjoying the way things were going for us that we refused to listen when Ellie and Diane tried to tell us that there were problems, big problems."

She turned to look at him "Stephen, WE are to blame for everything that's happened to our children, because we abandoned them! THAT's why everyone was so angry when you complained about what happened when they saved you from the mess you'd created, because WE pushed him into the life that meant that they could save you."

She turned to Bry and Casey "Please tell us about the man our son has become, and about his sister and his wife."

Casey and Bry, and Ellie, tag teamed for the next few hours as they filled in his parents on how Charles Irving Bartowski had become Rear Admiral Charles Carmichael, generally known as Mowgli. They also told them how Eleanor Faye Bartowski had become Captain Eleanor Charlemagne, and how Samantha Lisa Burdon had become Colonel Sarah Carmichael, also known as Shanti.

The final stage of the explanation was to take them up to the Operations Command office and show them the pictures of Chuck, Sarah, and even Ellie, in action with the men on staff there, and get the stories from some of those grizzled warriors about how they'd served with, and had sometimes been saved by, Mowgli, and his wife Shanti. That was where Mary heard the story of how Chuck won the Medal of Honor.

They also got stories from Jeff and Anna about what the Piranha and the things he'd been doing on the analysis and planning side, as they'd been working with him for a long time now.

By the time Chuck and Sarah came home from their day out, there was a very different Mary and Stephen waiting for them. They'd hardly gotten in the door before Stephen, and Mary, were apologising for everything they'd done and begging for a chance to make it up to them.

The road back to a family would be long and rocky but they'd finally made the first step.

* * *

Over the next few days, reports trickled in from the Black Rock site, they dug Roark's body out of the wreckage, so that was at least one story that was finished. With his demise, the government managed to get their hands on all of his personal files, and his massive ego proved to be a boon for Stephen Bartowski.

It turned out that Roark had kept copies of all the records that showed that he'd stolen most of the inventions and designs that he'd made his fortune on from one Stephen Bartowski as some sort of trophy of what he did, and all Stephen had to do to have all the patents assigned to him was to have his name changed back, so he and Mary became Stephen and Mary Bartowski again.

They were also going to get ownership of whatever was left in Roark's name as compensation for what Roark had stolen from him. It would take a while to process the transfers of the remnants of Roark Instruments and Roark's properties, but the money in Roark's name was transferred over fairly quickly, and Stephen used that to accelerate the development of what he and Leslie were working on for the team.

Another thing that Chuck's parents had started discussing and planning before they heard about the money was moving back to L.A. to reconnect with the family. With Roark's assets available to them, that would a lot easier thing to accomplish now.

Other records that came from Roark's files identified enough Fulcrum personnel and facilities to lead to the creation of a significant government task force to track down and clean out the remnants of Fulcrum, but there was one remnant that Chuck had arranged to be taken off the radar while he talked to him.

Only one person came out of the wreckage of Black Rock alive, and Chuck wasn't that surprised when he found out, because Vincent Smith's records had showed an apparent tendency to be almost indestructible. His army records showed him being written off for dead after incidents that killed everyone else, only for him to drag himself back and recover faster than expected a number of times before he finally disappeared, and obviously he didn't die then, either.

Vincent's file was interesting, because from the dates, he'd managed to get join the army reserves under age, and then used that to back door his way into ROTC after a few years. From there he went into the regular Army as a Second Lieutenant, and as soon as possible he got onto Special Forces training. He graduated from Special Forces training but ended up with the Rangers as a First Lieutenant in Afghanistan. It was interesting he and Chuck hadn't seen each other in Special Forces training, as they were apparently there at the same time.

Obviously, Fulcrum found a way to get to him in Afghanistan, because he was supposedly killed in action over there in 2000. That was what Chuck wanted to talk to him about, because he didn't believe that Vincent was a lost cause.

Chuck's track record with getting people to come over to their side was pretty good, Jeff, Anna, Mei-Ling, Laszlo, everyone else had written them off and insisted that they had to be locked away, but they were all valuable members of the team now, and he was getting the same vibe from Vincent.

When he went in to talk to Vincent, the greeting he got was cordial enough "Orion's son, I thought that you might have had something to do with Black Rock, I hope you got your father out safely?"

"Yes, thank you, and I prefer Chuck, if that's OK? How would you like to be addressed Mr Smith?"

"Well, if we're on first name terms, call me Vincent, now I don't see you as one to come here to gloat, so I presume that you've come to talk about something?"

"No, gloating's not my thing, ah, I was hoping to talk to you about how you came to be part of Fulcrum actually."

"Why would you want to know that Chuck?"

"Because I don't see you as being like the rest of the people in Fulcrum, and I'm banking on there being some hope for you."

"You're trying to save me?"

"In a way, if the relevant people can be convinced that you're not a lost cause, I'm hoping that we can come up with a mutually beneficial arrangement."

Vincent looked at him for a while, and then started talking. "A representative of Fulcrum came to me in Afghanistan and told me that the CIA and the Army had evidence that I'd falsified my records, and that I was going to be arrested as an enemy agent."

"The implication was that I'd be interrogated until I told them what they wanted, or died, whichever came first. Fulcrum offered to help me out, on the understanding that I would return the favour. As the idea of being tortured until I gave up something that I didn't have wasn't very appealing, I took them up on their offer."

"That's fair enough, by the way, what they told you was a lie, there's nothing of that nature in any Army or CIA records about you. I presume you bit at what they told you because you'd faked your age to join the reserves under age?"

"How did you?… Yes, Chuck, that was what convinced me that they were telling the truth."

"OK, what happened after that?"

"When they got me back to the States, I was working with a number of military people who were convinced that Fulcrum was on the side of right, so I became a little more comfortable with the idea of being part of Fulcrum, and that was when I was given my first real assignment, to head up the hunt for a CIA scientist called Orion who'd escaped, and we had to rescue him before the CIA got him back."

"It was an interesting hunt, Orion, your father, was determined not to be captured, and he had incredible resources at his disposal, he could take over building security systems and lock us in a room until he was far away, and he was quite aggressive about fighting being captured."

"He mined one location with explosives and blew it up, he took over a predator drone and blew up another team, and a third team was in an elevator ten stories up when he cut out all the safety controls and dropped it to the bottom."

"With how good he was, I was surprised when he was so clumsy when he broke into RI that night. You know that we wouldn't have found you if you hadn't stepped out, don't you?"

"Yes, and we were going to let you take him away and continue our mission, until I heard his voice."

"Indeed, anyway, once I'd fulfilled my obligation to Fulcrum by capturing Orion, I was going to leave, as I couldn't stomach what I was seeing, but I didn't get the chance, because you dropped a few bunker busters into the bunker where I was, and then I woke up here in the hospital."

Chuck looked at him for a while, and then spoke. "OK Vincent, you have a choice here, you can go to prison as they have planned for you, that would probably either end up with you spending your life in prison, or you getting recruited by another outfit like Fulcrum and being forced to do things that you don't agree with."

Vincent waited for him to continue, and when he didn't, he said "I presume that there's another option on the table here?"

Chuck nodded. "Or you can agree to join us and work with us against organisations like Fulcrum. I can't guarantee that I can get you out of here, but I've had a pretty good track record so far."

"Can you tell me who I'll be working for?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid, no, but I can assure you that we're legitimately working for the Government. OK, I can tell you that it isn't the CIA because we don't trust the people in charge there."

"How do you know that I won't agree to go along with you, then kill you and disappear?"

"I can't know for sure, of course, but so far I've been proven to be right about the people I've trusted, and I believe that I can trust you. And if I'm wrong, well, there are people who will track you to the ends of the Earth and kill you, slowly and painfully if I know her."

Vincent smiled and extended his hand as far as the handcuffs would allow "Well Chuck, I believe I can trust you too, so if you can do what you say, I look forward to working with you."

Chuck matched his smile and reached over to shake his hand, saying that he'd get word to him when he had an idea how things were going, and he'd come and see him when he could.

* * *

One of the things that they changed when the OC team came on board, was to move some of the Intersect teams' operational systems, along with the holding cells and interrogation rooms, from B2 to B3. They moved the rest of the Intersect team systems, along with the Special Projects team's systems, to B1, and used that level for their general work area.

That enabled them to give the OC staff access to B2 for the gym facilities and urban combat range (and medical centre), so the guys (and girls, but it was mainly the ex-special ops guys who used it) could work on their rehabilitation, and also maintain their weapons competencies.

The OC's senior officer's also used the facilities down there sometimes, and that changed some of the men's perceptions of the Admiral, because when he was in workout gear or the sauna, it was obvious where his purple hearts had come from. He had scars from bullet and knife wounds on his torso and limbs that showed that he'd been in the wars, especially that line of scars across his back that went from his right hip to his left shoulder. It was obvious that he'd been hit in the back with a burst of automatic weapon's fire, and they couldn't understand how he'd survived it.

One of the guys had asked him about it and he'd laughed, saying that he was too slow to get out of the way, but Lieutenant Commander Roberts had a different story, saying "That's bullshit. He stayed back to guard the extraction of some of us who were being medevaced because we'd been chewed up (hitting his prosthetic leg), and he wouldn't disengage until we were all in the Blackhawks. He got hit a few times when he finally disengaged and came after after us, but he was doing OK until he was about 80M out and then he got hit with the tail end of a long range burst from a machine gun."

"The Apache that was providing cover for our extraction took out the machine gun emplacement, and a couple of our guys went out to bring his body in, but when they picked him up they found out that he was still alive. The medics stabilised him in-flight and they operated on him as soon as they got him back. As far as we could see, the only reason he survived was that he'd been at extreme range for the machine gun, so the bullets didn't go right through him, as it was they went through his vest and were inside of him, but they somehow missed damaging anything important inside. Obviously, he recovered and got back to work, and that's who we have for a commander."

The Army and Marine Colonels also displayed scars like the Admiral, just nothing quite so obviously nearly fatal as that line of bullet holes across his back. The senior women officers apparently had plastic surgery to cover up their scars (from the quick looks that the guys gave them, it wasn't polite or safe to be staring at them when they were scantily dressed) as some signs could be seen by those who could recognise them, but they were mostly hidden.

Of course, it was easier to tell when they pointed them out like the Colonel did when she was in the sauna with one of the older guys and the Admiral. He'd been in the sauna when they came in, and he went to leave to avoid offending her because he looked pretty gruesome just wearing trunks for the sauna with his leg off, but she'd waved him back down, saying that they all had scars. At his retort of "Sorry ma'am, but I can't see any on you" she said "That's just because they've been tidied up, there's this one, and this one, and this one, and this, and this, and this." She was pointing to each as she said, and when she pointed them out, he could see the faint signs that were left after plastic surgery.

The ranges that they had on B2 were only up to 30 M or 70M (good enough for urban combat practice), but they did have one of the building's original escape tunnels (the last resort escape tunnel that exited down near the L.A. River) coming off B3 that they used for a longer shooting range, that tunnel was just over 3KM long, so while atmospheric conditions needed to be simulated, it was handy for rifle and sniper practice. They'd set up frames every 25M or so along the tunnel that they could hang targets from, so that they could select 120 different incremental ranges for the targets, and by offsetting the way they hung the targets, they could set up targets at multiple ranges for one session.

As well as giving the OC crew access to the B2 facilities, the other prime reason that they moved the facilities around was that they accepted that they would have to work with other NSA or CIA teams or personnel at times. While they accepted that they had to allow them in at times, they maintained that the elevator that could be seen in B3 couldn't be used because it only went up to a cover business that primarily employed civilians, and therefore it would blow their cover for outsiders to be coming in and out of the restricted parts of their business. Therefore, the only way that they'd allow anyone to access the base was via the tunnel to the parking garage a couple of blocks away.

There were actually four tunnels into B3 (five if the last resort tunnel was included), and they all terminated under buildings in the commercial district, a parking garage, storage facility, a mall and an office building. The reason that the parking garage tunnel was the only access tunnel that they allowed anyone else to see was that they'd ensured that there was sufficient shielding and jamming equipment in place on that one to disrupt any tracking and positioning devices. This was to prevent the people being led in from being tracked to the facility, and the original setup at the parking garage included a few twists and alternatives that helped confuse people about what direction they were heading and made it hard to find the actual entrance to the tunnel.

Other senior CIA and NSA Directors tried to argue that worrying about disrupting a simple cover business wasn't sufficient grounds to shackle their operations, but they didn't have any authority to force the Director of the Intersect Project (Major General Diane Beckman) to back down from her position. That meant that they could either work within the constraints stipulated or complete the mission without her team, and the success rate of operations that had the Intersect team's assistance was enough to make them swallow their pride and agree to the conditions.

So, when the CIA convinced the powers that be that the Intersect team needed to work with the CIA's expert on another organisation that Fulcrum had supposedly been a part of, that was how their expert was going to access the facility.


	21. Ringers

**OK, we've finally got out of season 2, was starting to wonder whether we would.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

As expected, once Aunt D and the DNI had reviewed the case that he put together for bringing Vincent Smith on-board, Chuck got his way. Because the name Vincent Smith had too many connections to Fulcrum associated with it, Vincent accepted the name change to Vincent Payne (not that he had much choice in the matter).

Initially Vincent was only added to the DIA team and Operations Command, though he was set up as an FBI Special Agent and NSA Agent as well as a DIA Agent. When he was brought on-board, his Army commission was re-instated as a Major, but at least his sense of humour was good enough for him to laugh at that. "Major Payne, really?"

When Vincent moved into Quixote House, he was offered one of the empty apartments, but he chose to share with Bry and Rick, and they were happy to agree, because that meant that the three Army officers were bunking together. They spent quite a bit of time reminiscing about their Army days.

* * *

The FBI was officially heading up the investigation into Roark Instruments. One of the first things the lead Agent on the investigation, Special Agent Diana Barrigan, was ordered to do was process the the staff out of RI. They had to advise them of the dissolution of the company, pay them out two weeks' salary as their termination from RI, and walk them out the door, ensuring that they didn't take anything other than their personal effects.

As the RI staff were being processed, all their names were to be checked against the list that had been provided to her (a ten page document), the requirements were that anyone they found that had their name on the list was to be taken into custody, their names were to be checked off the list with a notation that they'd been detained, and she was given a number to call immediately to inform whenever that happened.

She was also advised of another process for any missing staff, if they were on the list, their names were to be checked off with a notation that they were missing, but if they weren't, she was to call the number she was given and inform them of the details of the missing person. The list would be collected when all staff were processed and it was expected that every name on that list would be processed.

Agent Barrigan wasn't comfortable about how this was being played out, she, or the FBI really, were just being used as gophers for someone else on this. More to the point, she knew the voice that answered one time that she called through about taking someone with a listed name into custody, it was an FBI agent that she'd worked with in the past as Katie O'Connell, so why did she answer the phone as "Agent Carmichael"?

What she didn't know, of course, was that as soon as she got off the phone, Sarah checked into the task force and then turned to Chuck and said "We have a problem." Chuck turned around with a questioning look, so she continued. "The agent running the FBI task force at RI knows us and she recognised my voice, it's Diana Barrigan."

Chuck winced, this was a complication that they didn't need. "So, come clean?" Sarah nodded. "It seems the best option, she's intelligent enough to see through any crap we try to throw at her, and she deserves to be treated with respect." Chuck nodded and they went to get dressed, picking up their NSA and FBI credentials before they headed out.

When they arrived at RI, they used their FBI credentials to get them through the controls and get directed to the lead agent. When they saw her and Sarah asked "Agent Barrigan, do you have a moment?" they saw her stiffen, and then she turned to look at them, nodding her head at a nearby office and leading the way inside.

Once they were inside with the door closed, Sarah said. "Hello Diana, I expect that you'd like some answers?" Diana didn't look inclined to give an inch. "Yes, Agent O'Connell, or Agent Carmichael or whoever you are. I'd like to know what game you're playing."

Sarah stepped forward to lay Katie O'Connell's FBI credentials and Sarah Carmichael's NSA credentials on the desk in front of Diana. "For a start, when I'm not working a case, it's Sarah, Sarah Carmichael." Diana nodded and then looked at Chuck. "I presume that you go by something other than Agent Powers, too?" Chuck nodded and laid his FBI and NSA credentials out, saying. "Yes, it's Chuck, Charles Carmichael."

At that Diana took in their names and the matching wedding bands and asked "So you're actually husband and wife?" Sarah nodded with a smile, and for the first time Diana smiled "I thought you two looked awfully close the last time I saw you." With the ice finally broken, Sarah went to explain the situation but Diana stopped her, asking shouldn't her boss be doing this?

Chuck grinned and said "Oh, I'm only the boss at work, and even there that's questionable, she's the boss everywhere else. That's (waving at his SAC credentials) only a formality." Sarah nodded to him to continue and he gave Diana a 'See?' look before he went on to explain that they were actually FBI Special Agents under the O'Connell and Powers names, and that it was a sanctioned cross agency function to allow them to operate effectively when the cases they were on changed jurisdiction.

When he'd finished talking, he gave her the name of the FBI Director who could confirm that their status was legitimate, along with a key phrase to get her through to him. Diana looked at him and then made the call, and five minutes later she was put through to the man, and ten minutes later she had her assurances that the two in front of her were legitimate, and she in turn had given her assurances that word of this would go no further.

With that, they filled her in on the background that RI was part of an internal terrorist organisation that they were in the process of wiping out, and that the staff processing she was doing was to a) wind up the company, and b) separate the known members of the terrorist organisation from the civilian employees. Diana was happier with the situation, now that she knew more about what was going on, and Sarah was glad to have the issue sorted out, as she'd always liked Diana, and wouldn't have liked to have the friendship that they'd had to be broken by the job.

* * *

A few days after that, Aunt D called through a case that they were needed to assist on, an agent was in deep cover with an arms dealer, Karl Stromberg, she'd risked breaking cover to report that he was holding a weapon that was apparently worth $10 million to the buyer in his vault, but she couldn't get through the security features of the vault. That meant that they needed someone else, specifically Chuck, to get in there and steal the weapon.

Aunt D advised that there was a party coming up at Stromberg's house in a few days that would give him access to the vault, and that they had to meet the agent at a club that night to set up invitations to the party. They could tell that she was being evasive about something, so Chuck came out and asked her what it was.

She hesitated a bit more before saying. "The agent is Alex Forrest, she was brought back here in disgrace after you kicked her out of Operations Command, and she was desperate to prove herself again, so she accepted a long term infiltration mission from one of the operations areas. I didn't know anything about it other than the fact that she was working on the operation until we were requested to assist, and there's no way of extracting her now without exposing the entire operation, but she's been in there as Stromberg's girlfriend ever since then."

They were all silent for a few minutes, and then Sarah said "I hope you've dealt with the one who put her in there?" Aunt D's response was terse. "Yes, I've made sure that he's in a listening station above the Arctic Circle and he'll stay there until he leaves the NSA one way or another. The CIA or the DEA may do this sort of thing, but the NSA doesn't!"

With that, they got the details of where they were to meet her, and sombrely wound up the call. Sarah and Chuck talked about it a little more afterwards, they'd both wanted to slap the bitch for the stunt she'd pulled in Chuck's office, but no-one deserved to be sent in to sleep with someone like Stromberg for months, they had to get her out of there.

At the club, they were going back to the Charles and Sarah Powers identities that they'd been using for the mission in the suburbs, because being in the game, Stromberg may have heard of their other IDs so they couldn't risk it, and anyway they didn't have time to come up with new identities. When they saw her, they noted the engagement ring on her finger and looked at each other, this was apparently worse than they'd thought. As soon as Stromberg went off to get some drinks, Sarah went in, whispering in Alex's ear "It's Sarah and Charles Powers, I'm your old friend, and don't worry, we'll get you out of this." as she kissed her on the cheek.

Alex only just had the time to wipe the shock off her face and put a bubbly girlfriend look back on her face before Stromberg came back and she was introducing him to her best friend Sarah, and her new husband, Charlie. They talked for a while and then Stromberg dragged Alex off to a romantic dinner he had planned, but not before Alex said "Wait, you're coming to our engagement party on Saturday, right?" and they'd agreed, so she said she'd send Sarah the details and they left.

They hung out in the club for another fifteen minutes or so before they took off, just in case anyone was watching, but as soon as they were in the car, Chuck called Aunt D (because Sarah was driving). When she answered, Chuck got straight to it. "Did you know that the party we're going to is her engagement party?"

"WHAT? No, that was NOT included in the information that was sent to me, I think I may have to find somewhere worse to get that bastard sent to, get her out of there Chuck, no matter what she did, she doesn't deserve this."

"That's the plan Aunt D, she said she's sending the details to Sarah."

"On that, she sent a text to her contact to say that she's going to meet you tomorrow, you didn't talk about that?"

"No, she must be planning on coming to Quixote House, that's the only place she knows for us, OK, we'll keep an eye out for her."

Chuck looked at Sarah and she nodded to show she'd heard.

The next day, they were dressed for business in the PS&T office, watching the cameras outside. When Alex turned up in a cab and hesitated outside the door, Sarah went out and threw her arms around her, leading her inside.

She took Alex into her office, and Alex's eyes widened when she realised that this WAS her office.

Sarah called out to Chuck and then activated the intercom to say "OK" before turning it off and waving Alex over to the table in the front of the office.

Chuck came through the adjoining door to his office, and Casey, Carina and Zondra came in the front door. When they were seated, Chuck opened by telling Alex that Casey, Carina and Zondra were part of their core team, so it was easier to have everyone here to plan out what had to happen than have to call someone in and catch them up, Alex just nodded at that.

When they were ready, Alex started "Admiral.." but Chuck cut her off "No, Charlie, we need to stick with the name we told Stromberg until we're done with this." "OK, Charlie, I'm sorry you got dragged into this, to be honest I didn't know you were an agent, I knew about Walker and Casey, but not you. Anyway, I don't know how you're supposed to get through the security, Karl keeps saying that no-one can get through what he has in that vault, but I could never get the details of what that was. I tried to tell my handler that, but I don't know whether he passed that on?"

Chuck and Sarah looked at each other. "No, he didn't, but that was just one of the things that he kept quiet about, like the nature of the way you were inserted into the operation. What else can you tell us?"

Alex went over what she'd been able to discover, the make and model of the vault, the IP addresses for the security system and Internet connection, the layout and entry points for the house, the number of guards and their usual schedules, she'd done a good job on that. At the end she asked what had happened with her handler, as she hadn't been able to contact him in days?

Chuck glanced at her and said he'd been sent away, but he looked angry. When she saw Alex's confused expression, Sarah explained. "The way you were sent in, what you were sent in to do wasn't disclosed until you asked for assistance, and even then he withheld the nature of the party that was to be used to get us in and that you told us about the vault. Anyway, he's been assigned to a listening post above the Arctic Circle for the rest of his career, or life."

She could see the concerned looks Alex was still sending Chuck's way and shook her head. "It's not you Chuck's angry at, it's that bastard who sent you in there like that, we all are, including the General."

Alex's confusion had gone up a few notches now, so Carina piped up. "They both wanted to slap you silly for the stunt you pulled on them, but you didn't deserve to be sent in like that, no-one does, I've been there before and I'm still hunting the bastards who sent me in there."

Chuck decided that this wasn't helping so he brought the discussion back to the mission at hand. He explained that none of the information that she'd just given them had been passed on and they needed to re-scope everything if they were going to have a hope of succeeding.

As he talked, he grabbed the keyboard on the table and ran a search on the vault specs, now that they knew what it was that they had to deal with, and going by what he saw, Stromberg was justified in his confidence in the Vault's impregnability, the options that were available for it were incredible. He started compiling a list of what he thought they'd need to handle the vault security, but was asking Alex about the everything else, like the weapon. "Did you see the weapon, and do you have any idea about what makes it worth ten million? Could it be a suitcase nuke?"

"No, I saw the case, but didn't see inside it, and Karl hasn't talked about it, but I don't think it's big enough to be a suitcase nuke, it's only a fairly normal size metal briefcase."

Chuck nodded at that, they would take radiation meters to be sure, but if it wasn't nuclear they'd have a better chance at slipping it out unseen. The next item on the agenda was the team, with the number of guards that Alex had told them Stromberg had, they were going to need more than just her to keep them occupied, so it was agreed that Casey was going in as her older brother and Carina as his girlfriend.

With the primary mission agreed, they looked at the other angles of this, because it had to be done, Chuck asked Alex the big question. "Do you want to get out of there?"

She jumped at that "What? Of course I do! How could you ask that, do you think that I like sleeping with that bastard? NO!"

Chuck put is hands up to placate her. "I'm sorry, no, I didn't think that you wanted to be there but I had to ask to determine whether we're going to go after everything else in there at the same time to finish your mission so you can come home." Carina grabbed her arm and whispered "He wants to get you out of there, help him!", Alex nodded at that "Yes sir, I'm sorry."

This time it was Chuck who gently gripped her arm and said "You have nothing to apologise for, we just have to know what else we need to get, and where it is." She nodded again showing them where Stromberg's office was and telling them about the files she was sent to get.

By that stage she was running out of time and had to get back, so she left, arranging to send the details to Sarah and her 'brother', who Sarah had just told her was back in the country, and they'd next meet at the party. She did take back a couple of Chuck's remote access devices to connect to the security and computer networks to give them gateways into the systems there.

Providing that the remote access devices worked like they normally did, they could give them a way to get control of the cameras, and if they could get into the computers ahead of time they could get the information to finish Alex's other mission, that way when they left, they could take her with them.

Chuck's shopping list to get prepared was relatively short, but difficult, he needed some imaging glasses that would enable him to see the lasers that were probably operating inside the vault, he needed a devices to check for radiation and electrical or mechanical activity, and he needed a device to try and take over the control systems for the vault.

Most importantly, he had to make use of the extension that he and Ellie had put together for the updated and improved Intersect that they were developing from Fulcrum's Intersect files. Between them, they'd remapped the interfaces between the Intersect and the body's control systems so that they engaged at a much lower level, without having to be filtered through the brain's logic processes, so the actions were much quicker, stronger and faster, as well as being more efficient and natural.

Now that they'd improved the usability of the physical skills coded into the Intersect, though, they'd highlighted the fact that what was in there was rather limited. They'd found the systems Fulcrum had used to convert the data from match moving systems into the requisite Intersect nerve impulses, and they'd decided to bypass the external Match Moving process and add the Match Moving software as a learning module into the Intersect itself. With extensive input from Ellie, Chuck had recoded the systems so that the Match Moving Module in the Intersect would generate the set of Intersect nerve impulses from watching the necessary movements being made (either in real time or from memories), and had loaded the new module.

He'd tested it in small functions, but he hadn't had a chance to generate a larger routine with the module yet, and he'd need to be able to do that if he was to get though the lasers that he expected to find in the vault. Over the next couple of days, he watched gymnasts, acrobats, clowns, martial artists, dancers, contortionists, break dancers, anything which could possibly assist with the movements that he may need to make.

Another benefit of the changes they'd made to the movement interfaces was that the most appropriate action was loaded according to what his brain was registering, so he would see something coming and his brain would retrieve what fitted that from the database in his head, which should be just what he needed for this.

Chuck, Jeff and Anna also got into the security and computer systems at Stromberg's when Alex attached the remote access devices to the networks, all they needed was to park a suitably equipped car within range of the devices' WiFi, and they could use the equipment in the car to relay the signal back to them. The only hassle with using the cars was that they had to change them daily to avoid attracting too much attention.

That way, they confirmed that Jeff and/or Anna could control the cameras from the control van, and they copied everything off every computer and device attached to the network, they also got copies of any communications and any additions or amendments to what was on the computers, so they had enough to complete Alex's original mission.

On Saturday night, Jeff and Anna were in the control van with Bry, Zondra, Mei-Ling and Vincent as a backup team in case the guys inside needed assistance, Sarah and Chuck went in Sarah's Porsche, and Casey and Carina went in Chuck's Aston Martin.

When they walked in, Alex pretty much leapt onto Casey, and then hit him as she complained "If Sarah hadn't told me you were back in the country, I wouldn't have known at all, why was it that my friend knew where my brother was, but I didn't?" Casey pleaded.

"Hey, it wasn't my fault, Carina was dragging me around Europe to fashion shows, and then she suddenly got tired of it and decided that it was time to come home. The only reason that Sarah knew was because Carina called her to have lunch as soon as we got back!" Alex made a show of letting him off the hook at that, just adding "Well YOU should have called me as soon as you got back!".

Chuck and Sarah and Casey and Carina mingled around the party, but Chuck and Sarah had to keep a low profile in case anyone might recognise them as the Carmichaels. Just before Stromberg's speech, Alex came to them and slipped Sarah his key cards for the office and the vault, and they slipped away while people were being called to the foyer for Karl's speech. As soon as the speech started, Jeff began looping the security video while Anna talked them through the guards' positions and they hoofed it to the vault.

When they opened the vault, Chuck put the imaging glasses on and his tired "Shit!" told Sarah that they had a difficult scenario, he slipped the glasses off and handed them to her while he tried to find a way to turn the security controls off inside the vault, but no dice. Sarah only took one look and then handed the glasses back to Chuck, as she'd seen enough, ROVING lasers? Weren't fixed lasers tricky enough?

Sarah asked if he could get through that, but it didn't give her too comfortable a feeling when he just said "I hope so" as he took off his jacket and handed it to her, after transferring a few items to his pants' pockets. He held her hand as he watched the roving lasers' patterns for a few minutes and then let go when he was ready to move.

She couldn't believe the way he moved through the lasers, leaping, twisting, spinning, even dropping to the floor and limboing under the beam once, she'd never seen anyone move like that, every move was different from the last and she wasn't sure he made the same move twice, but he got through without triggering anything.

When he was through, the first thing he tested for was radiation, but Alex was right, it wasn't nuclear, then he checked for any activity on the case that would indicate an alarm or bomb, and that was clear too, so he pulled out his lock picks and picked the locks on the case. What was in there didn't look like a weapon, it was a flat ovoid that looked more like a George Foreman Grille than anything else he recognised, but he ran the same scans over it as he had the case, and it still came up clean.

After that, he lifted it out and carefully went through the case to make sure that there wasn't anything else in there, then relocked the case and left it in exactly the same position it was when he'd found it. Taking the object they came for, he knelt down and when all the beams were clear of the floor, he slid it across to the doorway where Sarah was, and she picked it up.

Then, he took another couple of minutes to get the movement patterns of the beams again and danced his way back out. Strapping the object into the small of his back under his shirt, they checked the time and when Carina told them they had five minutes (because Casey'd had to take over the speech when Stromberg's finished too soon), they ducked into Stromberg's office to quickly check for any hardcopy evidence or external drives or computers that weren't on the network.

They quickly scanned a few documents and copied the contents of a few thumb drives that they found in the safe and the drawers, then put everything back the way they found it and got back downstairs before the speeches had finished.

Downstairs, Chuck waited at the door while Sarah ran over to tell Alex that Chuck had been called into work because some critical systems had crashed (and to slip the key cards back to her). Then, with a kiss, and a hug and one last "congratulations" she ran back to Chuck and they left, though they only drove as far as the control van.

The had to concede, as they listened over the mics, that Alex's performance was masterful, the way she played Stromberg as she gave him the story that Casey had filled her in on earlier. She moaned that her brother had told her Carina had decided that they were heading back to Europe again tomorrow because one of her friends over there had called her about another exclusive show that was on in Paris in a couple of days, and she didn't know when she was going to see him again.

Eventually Stromberg suggested that she should go and catch up with her brother tonight and he'd see her in the morning (he was actually sounding quite smitten with her), and she'd kissed him (slipping the key cards back into his pocket) and ran upstairs to grab a small overnight bag. She kissed him again and thanked him for being such a wonderful and considerate fiancé before she left with Casey and Carina.

As soon as the Aston Martin passed the van, the van took off after them, with Sarah and Chuck right behind in the Porsche, Stromberg shouldn't find anything wrong for ages, but they didn't want to stay anywhere nearby just in case.

Back at Quixote House, they locked the "weapon" in the safe on B1, because they had been told it was related to another case that they were being brought into in the future, and after they'd reported the outcome of their mission to their superiors, they settled Alex into one of the spare bedrooms in the Penthouse, because she was going back to D.C. in a C-37 that Aunt D was arranging for the following morning.

After they got Alex settled in her room, the rest of the team sat down in the living room and talked about some of the developments that had come out of the debriefing with Aunt D and Alex's boss. The key topic of conversation was, of course, this Ring organisation and the CIA "Ring Expert" that they were being saddled with to pursue it.

Vincent did have some input on the Ring, as he'd dealt with them when he was chasing Orion around the world, Fulcrum had apparently been merely the North American segment of the Ring, so when he was overseas he worked with Ring resources. Unfortunately, Vincent didn't have much more than that, they'd seemed more professional than Fulcrum, but that wasn't hard considering that the one trying to run Fulcrum was a buffoon like Ted Roark. He did know that they were mainly based in Europe, though, which raised questions about why the CIA's expert on the organisation was in the United States.

Chuck, Jeff and Anna had combed all the records for this Daniel Shaw, and there were suspicious holes all through his records, in fact they read much like Bryce Larkin's had, which set off alarm bells with anyone who'd had to deal with Larkin.

There wasn't much more in the Intersect about Shaw, he just appeared out of nowhere with no service history behind him, and that made them all wonder.

At least it was much easier and effective to search the Intersect now, because along with the physical interfaces, Chuck and Ellie had reworked the Intersect Information systems, also moving their interfaces lower down so that they were more into the unconscious level and less limited. This meant that information retrieval was much quicker, massive searches could be conducted much faster and with much less effort (Chuck tweaking the search and image/voice recognition software in the Intersect helped with that as well), and the effect of getting a flash of information was no more that a feeling of recognition, he could tell that it was the Intersect, but it didn't hit him like it used to.

Another big advantage of moving the interfaces to the unconscious areas of the brain, was that it removed the filters that were imposed by the brain's logic processes, so all the input was processed, and things that may have been missed before due to being filtered out were now included. (This was also why the Motion Matching process worked, the unconscious took everything in and processed it into the requisite nerve impulses/actions, whereas the conscious mind would have had to focus on a finite number of items.)

Of course, no longer getting the horrendous headaches or other glitches once the earlier versions were all overwritten with what he and Ellie had reworked (with a little input from their father) was a major bonus, too.

A final safeguard that Chuck had added was to add code to prevent their version being overwritten. Before any updates could be done, a deactivation signal had to be sent, and another signal sent at the end to reactivate the Intersect. This meant that if he was hit with another Intersect upload, it would have no effect on him.

For all that, though, they didn't get any really useful information about this guy Shaw, which was a worry. They decided to keep the team that he saw to the ones he was likely to already know about, Sarah, Chuck, Casey and Carina, there was no reason for him to know about Zondra, Mei-Ling, Bry, Rick, Vicky, Jeff, Anna, Ellie or Emma, and they'd preferred to keep it that way.

The next morning, they took Alex Forrest to the Airport for her ride back to D.C. to give her reports on the operation while they were analysing the intel that she'd brought back with her.

What she'd brought in was deemed enough to take Stromberg down, and an NSA task force took him and everyone at his place the next day, which also meant that the team could recover the car that they'd left to relay communications so that they could continue to monitor Stromberg.

* * *

When Casey brought Shaw into the Dungeon, as they called it, he strutted in as if he owned the place because he was a CIA Special Agent, and was much more important that anyone else, and they just looked at each other, this was going to be interesting.

Shaw ignored everyone else and zeroed in on Sarah the moment he walked in, he was going to put these losers in their place so they knew who was in charge, but Walker was something he'd wanted for a long time. Casey was a burn out, just marking time to his retirement, Miller was known to be a demon in bed but nothing else of note, and Bartek was just a geek who was an analyst, but Walker was beautiful, and he'd heard the stories about what she'd do with the proper motivation, so he'd play nice with her until he got what he wanted. "Hello Sarah, I've heard so many good things about you, it's going to be a pleasure to be working with you."

Sarah looked at him as if he was something she'd stepped in. "The pleasure's all your's Shaw." That set off his triggers, because he couldn't handle not being treated as important as he thought he was, so he drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest. "That's Special Agent Shaw, Agent Walker, you need to learn to show proper respect to your superiors!"

At that Sarah smiled grimly as she responded. "I do, Shaw, but you obviously don't, have the CIA forgotten protocol so much that you don't know that you are to report to the Special Agent in Charge when you report to a new Station?"

Shaw frowned at her. "What Station?" To get this sleaze away from Sarah, Casey answered him, to make him turn and look at him. "This Station, Shaw, NSA Glendale Station."

At that Shaw realised that two things, first that he didn't really know what was going on here, and second that he needed to get this back on track. "I wasn't informed of that, so you've gotten yourself a promotion Casey?" Casey's look matched Sarah's (well, it had always been there under a veneer of civility, but he stopped bothering to cover it up now) "Yes, Shaw, I did, but I'm not the SAC, obviously Special Agent Walker was correct about the CIA's lack of protocol, and manners."

Shaw drew himself up again. "Well I don't have time to play twenty questions with you people, the fact is that you've been assigned to assist me on my operation, so your titles aren't important, all that's important is that I'm in charge and that you do what I tell you to!"

At that point Chuck burst out laughing. "Shit Sarah, I thought that Larkin just behaved like this because he was an arsehole, are all CIA Agents like this?" Sarah smiled at him "Pretty much, yeah."

Shaw rounded on Chuck and started in on him "Watch it Bartek, I won't take any crap from some geek who's barely an analyst, one more word out of you and I'll have you fired!"

That was the final straw it took to make friendly, genial Chuck disappear (he'd already been on edge from the way Shaw went after Sarah), he stood up and walked towards Shaw with an expression that made Shaw back up a couple of steps as he got closer. Chuck maintained that no more than two step distance as he spoke calmly to Shaw. "That's Special Agent in Charge Carmichael to you, Shaw, this is my station, my team, and MY operation, so anything that is run out this station and my team is run by me, do you understand?" Shaw started stammering that this was an CIA operation and he'd be running it, and Chuck looked at Sarah.

In less than twenty seconds the big screen lit up with the image of Major General Diane Beckman. The flash of amusement that crossed over her face when she saw the tableau on screen would have been missed by anyone who didn't know her, and she'd schooled her expression before she spoke "Yes Special Agent Carmichael?"

Chuck held Shaw's gaze as he spoke, "General, was the CIA advised of the parameters and conditions that apply when they request the assistance of my team? Also, do the CIA still operate under the same protocols as the rest of the intelligence community in regards to reporting to another agency's station?"

"Yes, Agent Carmichael, I informed the CIA Director who requested our assistance of how any operations with your team will be run, and in my experience, the CIA has complied with the required protocols when reporting to NSA stations, why, what has happened here?"

With the Chuck turned to the screen "Agent Shaw here has disrespected every member of my team that he's deigned to talk to, upon entering he ignored everyone else and immediately tried to make advances to Special Agent Walker. When she rebuffed his advances he tried to intimidate her into showing him respect as her superior, so she pointed out to him that protocol required that he report to the Special Agent in Charge of the Station."

"When Special Agent Casey informed him of what station he was in, he disrespected him, even though he obviously presumed that Special Agent Casey was the Special Agent in Charge, and went on to inform him that as we were assigned to assist him, so we all worked for him and we had to do what he said. I must admit that I laughed out loud at that because it was so ridiculous, and he informed me, what was it? Oh yes, that I was a geek who was barely an analyst and if I said one more word he'd have me fired."

"If this is an indication of the nature of engagements with the CIA General, I cannot allow my team to assist the CIA on any of their operations, it's too disruptive and we have too many important projects to waste time on things like this."

Shaw only managed to get out "Who do.." before the General cut him off. "Shaw, I strongly advise you shut your mouth before I allow Special Agents Walker, Casey and Miller to do what they desperately want to do." That made Shaw look around and saw that they all had pistols in their hands, and murder in their eyes, when he saw that he deflated and stepped back.

The General went on "Special Agent Carmichael, can we get the CIA Director on the line and see if we can manage to sort this out without bloodshed?" Chuck made a show of reluctantly agreeing, but stressed that Agent Shaw would need to make some serious apologies to his team if he wanted to avoid trouble. The General nodded and brought the CIA Director on-line.

As soon as he came on line, she jumped in "Director Hanson, what instructions did you give Agent Shaw about the operation with the Intersect team?" He looked from her image, to the image of the dungeon, Shaw went to speak but stopped when he heard the sound of three rounds being chambered.

"As you advised me General, I informed Agent Shaw that he was to report to the Special Agent in Change of the Glendale Station, and that the SAC would be in charge of the operation."

"Are you aware of any medical, mental health or illicit drug related issues with this agent Director?"

"No I am not, why would you ask that General?"

"Because your agent, upon entering our station, ignored everyone else as he immediately tried to make advances to one member of the team, disrespected her and another two members of the team, informed them that they all worked for him because it was his operation, and told the SAC that he'd have him fired if he spoke back to him."

"Is this true Shaw?"

Shaw only got out "No Sir" before Chuck said, "Let's play the recording, shall we?", which made him change his tack "Well, strictly speaking, perhaps, but that was out of context", but Chuck said "Director, if I may?" and nodded to Carina who'd queued it up.

At the end of the recording the Director looked furious, because Shaw had made him and the CIA look like idiots by association. "What part of what the General said did you think was out of context Shaw? Because from what I just saw and heard, she went easy on you." This time Shaw remained silent.

The General took up the discussion again. "Director, obviously, the team would have difficulty working with Agent Shaw given the way he chose to enter, is there anyone else that can be assigned to the team for this operation?"

"I'm afraid not General, Shaw is the only Ring specialist that the CIA has, he was reporting DCI Graham before he died, but the Acting DCI assigned him to me, as the Director of Operations, apparently he knew something I didn't." Then he turned to address Shaw.

"Shaw, are you capable of behaving like a real agent and a professional and provide the team with the Ring information it needs to complete this operation? WITHOUT making them shoot you by doing anything else as stupid as you've done up to now?"

Shaw gritted his teeth "Yes Sir." The Director turned his attention back to the others.

"General, Special Agent Carmichael, are you prepared to give this a try?" Chuck looked at the others, and when they reluctantly agreed he agreed to see whether it could be workable, but stipulated that Shaw would be working out of the CIA's L.A. Station most of the time as he wasn't prepared to subject his team to him any more than absolutely necessary.

As he had to mend bridges, the Director readily agreed to that, and they cancelled the link.

They all headed into the conference room to get some of the basic information together to get a start on the operation, and as Chuck entered the room, he saw Shaw making a beeline for the chair next to Sarah. "SHAW! What do you think you're doing?"

Shaw had somehow deluded himself, all the evidence to the contrary, into thinking that he could pull the wool over their eyes, and casually waved to the seat he was heading for, saying "I was just going to sit down so we can get started."

Chuck only just managed to keep a civil tone as he said "Special Agent Walker has made it quite clear that she doesn't want to be anywhere near you, you WILL respect her wishes and stay away from her, do you understand?"

Shaw bristled and started to respond, but stopped when he heard at least two rounds being chambered again, he looked to see pistols in Sarah and Casey's hands, while Carina had her's on the table in front of her. Chuck pointed to the far end of the table and said "You sit there!" When Shaw didn't move the tone of his voice changed considerably as he barked "Now!"

When Shaw had seated himself and Chuck sat down between him and Sarah (in the very seat Shaw had been intending to take, actually), Chuck told him to fill them in on what he knew about the Ring. Shaw's response that the background wasn't relevant, they just needed to get the intel that he was after so he could proceed didn't go down well with Chuck.

He grabbed the keyboard on the table and about twenty seconds later the screen lit up with the image of Director Hanson. When the Director saw who was on screen, he wasn't happy. "What can I do for you Special Agent Carmichael?" "Director, I'm sorry but this operation will have to be cancelled, Agent Shaw refuses to provide us with information about the Ring that we'll need to conduct the operation." "Is this true Shaw?" Shaw only got out "No sir.." before Chuck started the replay of the discussions in the room.

When it was done, the Director looked at Shaw and asked "Are you retarded Shaw? Just in the last fifteen minutes, you've repeatedly claimed that you haven't said something when anyone up to even the level of the village idiot would know that the proof that you're lying was going to be ready to be played."

"Special Agent Carmichael, if you would give me ten minutes to clear my schedule, it appears that I will have to sit in on this to make the Village Idiot deliver what's required."

Chuck got as far as "I'm sorry about this Director" when the Director cut him off "No, it's the CIA that needs to apologise to you, all of you, for forcing THIS on you, and I can assure you that there will be a proper apology coming your way ASAP, but unfortunately we're seeing enough to be sure that the Ring IS something to be worried about, and this idiot is supposedly the one who knows the most about it, so if you'll give me ten minutes I'll clear my schedule so I can try to help get what you need. Shaw, get your facts in order!"

True to his word, after ten minutes of quite interesting conversations to line up other people to cover things for him because he had to help with an inter agency operation that one of their idiots was screwing up, he was back, and took up with. "So Shaw, the lead agent has asked you to fill the team in on everything you know about the Ring. Well, we're listening! SHAW!"

Shaw had spent the whole time stewing over the fact that the Director had been openly treating him like an idiot and siding with these losers, he used to report to the DCI for God's sake, now he'd been relegated to dealing with the Director of Operations, and the bastard wasn't giving him any respect at all! He had to get this back on track and put all of them in their place, and Walker's place was going to be on her knees doing everything he wanted. It seemed that she was involved with Bartek in some way, so he needed to get him out of the way so he had a clear shot at her.

He was so tied up in his plans he didn't hear the Director describing him as an idiot to everyone he talked to, or when the Director spoke to him, because he was exalting in what he was going to do to Walker once she'd given in to him, so the Director had to shout his name a second time to get his attention. He muttered something about "Sorry sir, just putting all the information together" and then started talking about the Ring, still thinking about his plans.

An hour or so later, they had everything Shaw knew, and most of that was vague and second hand, Shaw had supposedly inserted an agent into the Ring in Paris in 2003, but they were killed in 2005, in the nearly four years since then the intel he'd been getting was even more tenuous, as he'd just been chasing any word of the Ring that he could get around Europe.

Recently, he'd heard that the agent that he'd had inside the Ring's lock box with all the intel that they'd accumulated on the Ring was being sold at auction, and the ones selling it had paid an arms dealer, Karl Stromberg, ten million to transport it to the United States for the auction. He'd come back to the States to get it off Stromberg, but apparently some NSA team had managed to get it off him, so they'd have to get it from the NSA.

Chuck looked at the screen at that point and the Director nodded to show that he'd got the message, and he, at least, knew who had that lock box.

Of course Shaw missed that exchange as he'd been hit with a brilliant idea that would address two of his problems at once. Bartek was no match for Panzer, hell, he didn't know anyone who was, which was why he was still trying to find a way to get that key off him, so this was perfect!

With that, Shaw went on to say that the digital key that was needed to open the lock box was in Paris, so someone from the team needed to go there and retrieve it. At that he looked at Chuck and said "I hear that you'd love to see Paris, Chuck, this would be an easy trip for you, duck over on the Red Eye tonight, see the sights, pick up the key and come back."

Chuck knew that there was something else there, but he wasn't in the mood to pander to Shaw, or play games with him, so he just said that he couldn't spare anyone from his team for a sightseeing trip, so he would have to go himself. Shaw came back with "Oh, I'm afraid I can't go myself, I'm too well known in Paris, I'd be made as soon as I landed."

Chuck had had it "For fuck's sake, Director, do you have any agents in Paris at the moment?"

"Of course we do Agent Carmichael, Shaw, what's the location for this key, I'll get someone to pick it up straight away."

Shaw looked like he wanted to disappear now "Well, ah, the key may not actually be in Paris yet, word was that the Ring is transporting it to Paris now."

If looks would actually kill, the ones he was getting from everybody, including his own Director, would have struck him dead on the spot then.

The Director then asked "When, exactly, is this key being transported to Paris?"

"It's apparently going with a First Class passenger on the Red Eye flight tonight."

"So you were planning on telling Special Agent Carmichael while he was on the plane that the whole operation had changed and he needed to engage an enemy agent on the plane?"

"I thought it would be better to avoid making him nervous by telling him ahead of time, as it's my understanding that he doesn't have much field experience. It should be a simple job, knock out the courier and take the key."

"Well if it's that simple, then you can do it, the E-tickets will be waiting for you when you get to the airport!"

"I, I may need support sir, in case the Ring has more than one person on the plane, it would make more sense if Agent Walker and I travelled as a couple, I'm sure that we can handle anything that comes up between us."

Chuck had to restrain Sarah as she began to launch herself out of the seat, but while she was still being held by Chuck she addressed the Director "As Special Agent Carmichael and I have both informed Mr Shaw more than once, Director, I am not prepared to work directly with him in any capacity, and I do not believe that Special Agent Miller is, either."

Carina cut in at that point "Special Agent Walker is correct on that, sir, but I am prepared to go as backup for the mission. It won't be the idiot's plan, though, I will not have any contact with him in any shape or form at the airport or on the plane, I will observe his actions, and if he manages to succeed I'll just go along for the ride, if he fails, as I expect that he will, I'll take over the mission and get the key."

The Director looked at her. "Are you sure about this Agent, sorry, Special Agent Miller? You won't have any support up there, the risk factor will be high." Carina nodded. "Yes, sir, if the intel is as important as Shaw says I'll make sure we get the key, but I won't promise not to shoot him if it isn't worth the effort."

He smiled grimly at that "If it isn't, I'll hold him still for you myself!" He looked around the room. "If that's all, Shaw, get moving! Special Agent Miller, good luck."

Casey escorted Shaw out, and as soon as they were out of the room the others came down from where they'd been listening in. Mei-Ling's first words as she walked in were "You're not going into that by yourself, I'm coming with you!" and Vincent added "And so am I." As it made sense to have backup that no-one knew about and there was little time, no-one argued, they just booked three separate tickets on the flight while the three of them packed their bags.


	22. Changing Sides

**I don't think we've done enough to Woody yet, do you? I'm sure I can think of a few more indignities for him.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

* * *

They were taken to the airport separately, Carina had to rebuff Shaw when he went to talk to her in the airport departure area, and made a point of getting her seat moved in First Class so that she was well away from him. Mei-Ling was also in First Class, but Vincent was in Business Class, in case the Ring Agent was someone that he'd met while he was working for Fulcrum.

Shaw made his move just two hours into the flight, and Carina and Mei-Ling both promised to kill the bastard if they could do so without getting caught, because the one he'd been trying to set Chuck up to go up against without any preparation was a big mother, Hugo Panzer, and the way he moved said that he knew how to fight.

Panzer took Shaw out, but unfortunately he left him alive, tied up in the baggage hold. Carina gave him time to settle down and then started to come onto him with a few lines about how she was into big muscled guys. Being Carina, she had little trouble convincing him to join the mile high club for that flight with her.

With his size, it also wasn't too hard for her to manoeuvre Panzer into suggesting somewhere other than the 1st Class toilet for the deed, and as soon as he took her down to the baggage hold, she killed him and took the key off him. Against her better judgement, she cut Shaw loose before she went back to her seat. When she did so, though, he tried to take the key off of her, saying that it had to be with him for safe keeping, and in the ensuing scuffle she cut him too and left, leaving him there trying to bandage his bleeding hand.

The dramas weren't finished yet, though, because Panzer hadn't been alone on the flight after all, one of the Flight attendants who was actually a Ring assassin poisoned Carina to make her give up the key. Carina was deteriorating quickly, so Mei-Ling used the special satellite phone that Chuck gave her to call home and ask for help.

That was how Chuck actually found a worthwhile use for that disturbing drug and poison databases that had come with the Fulcrum Intersect. Mei-Ling passed along all the symptoms that Carina was experiencing and Chuck used the database to narrow it down to two or three possibilities, from there he asked her a few questions to get to the most likely one, and that made it possible for him to let Mei-Ling know what should be on the plane that could be used to lessen the effects of the poison long enough to get the antidote from the assassin.

Mei-Ling grabbed the ingredients and made up the concoction that Chuck told her should work for Carina, while Vincent grabbed the Ring Assassin posing as a flight attendant and dragged her down into the baggage hold to get the antidote from her. She was tougher than he'd expected and resisted his demands for a while, but eventually she gave in to the pain and gave up the antidote to him. Once she'd done that he gave her the release from the pain she was asking for, and rushed the antidote to Carina.

The antidote stabilised Carina fairly quickly, and Mei-Ling stayed with her for the rest of the flight. Before he went back to Business Class, Carina handed off the key to Vincent, so that Shaw would have no idea where it was. While she was sitting with Carina, Mei-Ling called Chuck again and he filled her in on what was supposed to happen when they arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport. They would have people meet them on the air side of customs to take them aside and give Carina medical attention to make sure that she was in no danger from the poison.

Once she'd been given the all clear, Carina, Mei-Ling and Vincent would be taken out to a CIA C-37B that was currently being re-directed to Paris for refueling to bring them home. Mei-Ling asked "What about the other one?" and Chuck just replied "Not our problem, he's got a return ticket." Mei-Ling's guttural "Good" was echoed by Carina when she passed on the news. Mei-Ling left Carina for a few minutes after that to duck back into Business Class to tell Vincent what was happening.

When they landed, Shaw was obviously waiting for Carina to leave the plane, at least he was until two security guards came onto the plane and escorted him away to ask him a few questions. When he was out of the way, Mei-Ling and Carina left the plane and met up with Vincent, and they were all directed to the room where the doctors were waiting for Carina.

As soon as she was given a clean bill of health, they were all escorted out to the C-37B and they were soon winging their way back to the States. Once they were on the plane, they didn't think of Shaw at all.

* * *

Back at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Shaw had been subjected to a full cavity search and then, still naked and secured to a chair, he was interrogated about how he'd gotten that gash on his hand, and what he knew about the two bodies that had been found in the baggage hold of the plane he'd just come off.

Director Hanson allowed the interrogation to go on for four hours. (And he laughed as he watched Shaw get even more punishment for insisting that it was Carina and either the Asian woman from First Class or the shaved headed man from further back in the plane who had killed the two they'd found, because Chuck had already scrubbed all records of any of them but Shaw ever having been on the plane, so they punished him for trying to say that it was someone else who wasn't there.)

When he thought that Shaw had been punished enough, for now, Director Hanson contacted the authorities there and advised them that Shaw was actually an agent, and that the plane had been in international airspace when the altercations with the terrorists had occurred, so he was released and allowed to get dressed again.

The final insult was when one of his interrogators stopped him before he could hobble from the room and offered him a pillow like they issued on the planes, saying in bad English "To sit on", which had them all cracking up laughing, well, everyone but Shaw, anyway.

As the plane that his return ticket had been for had already left by the time the interrogation had finished, and he wasn't allowed to leave the airport (he was escorted to the ticket counter by armed guards who waited right there to take him back again as soon as he had a ticket), he had to buy another ticket to get back to the States.

On top of that, as he found that his CIA credit card had been cancelled when he tried to use it to buy another ticket, he ended up having to buy the cheapest cattle class ticket he could find with his personal credit card, because that was all the limit of his personal card would stretch to (he'd always found a way to claim that whatever he was spending money on was mission related, so he didn't bother maintaining much of a limit on his personal card).

Not having had to organise any of his own flights before, and a little desperate, he took the first flight that they said he had enough limit on his card to pay for, not realising that that would add at least eight hours to his flight, so he didn't get back to L.A. until almost a day after the others.

As soon as he was brought into the Dungeon, Shaw ranted at Chuck that he would get his revenge for what they'd done to him in Paris, but Chuck didn't have any idea what he was talking about. When Shaw kept going on about, Chuck just told him to talk to his Director, as all they'd done was ask for him to be kept away from Special Agent Miller so that she could get medical attention for what happened to her on the plane, past that they had no knowledge of what he was talking about.

Shaw quickly found out that grabbing Chuck's arm when he was turning away from him was a bad idea, because in seconds he was on his knees with his wrist twisted back, just short of its breaking point, as Chuck quietly told him. "Shaw, I don't know what it will take to get something through to you, but you are never to touch ANY of the members of my team, not even me, do you understand?" Shaw had tears of pain streaming from his eyes as he nodded emphatically and said "Yes, yes, yes."

Chuck let him go then and told him to get moving because everyone was waiting for him to answer some questions. When Shaw just stood there holding his wrist when he got to his feet, Chuck said "NOW!" and he hobbled to the conference room as quickly as he could.

When they got into the conference room, and Chuck pointed to the seat at the end of the table away from the others saying "Sit!". Both Director Hanson and General Beckman were up on screens and Casey, Sarah and Carina were sitting at the other end of the table, waiting. Director Hanson asked what was wrong with Shaw's wrist and Chuck responded "Sorry Director, Agent Shaw didn't appear to understand the boundaries of acceptable touching and I reacted before I could stop myself, I did manage to stop myself before I broke anything, though."

Hanson smirked at Shaw and said "I thought you would have learned your lesson about acceptable touching in Paris, Shaw, apparently I over-estimated you." The looks of confusion on everyone else's faces made it clear to even Shaw who'd been behind Paris, and Hanson confirmed it seconds later when he said "Apparently there was some confusion in Paris, because the authorities there first suspected him of being a drug smuggler, and then of being a terrorist or hit man because of the bodies on the plane. Unfortunately I was told that some of the locals got a little over-enthusiastic with their treatment of Agent Shaw." The rest of them were trying to cover their smirks then, but Chuck brought the discussion back to the mission at hand.

"We went through the disks that were in the lock box, and though dated, it's given us some good leads on the Ring's activities, we're liaising with our US agents in Europe, as well as the DGSI, DGSE and Interpol, to narrow the noose on the Ring's people over there." Shaw started arcing up at that, shouting.

"This is my operation! You had no authority to open that lock box or look into any of this without me!"

Director Hanson cut him off "Shut up Shaw! Special Agent Carmichael contacted me when Special Agent Miller returned with the digital key for the lock box and he has the CIA's full authority to proceed as he sees fit. The more I see of your behaviour, the more I wonder why anyone has ever allowed you to run any operation." He nodded to Chuck to continue.

"Thank you Director, we've merged the information from the disks with what Agent Shaw supplied for the period after the agent died (such as it is), and I've used that image to create search engines to locate Ring activities. As we've been getting hits on this, we've been able to optimise it to improve the performance of the search engines."

"Thank you Special Agent Carmichael, is there anything else at this time?"

Sarah piped up with "Actually, there is!" and picking up something from the table in front of her she stood and walked down the table. Chuck quickly stood and followed her.

When they reached Shaw, Sarah held up the woman's wedding rings that had been in an envelope in the bottom of the lock box, asking. "Shaw, did you send a married woman undercover into a nest of vipers like the Ring for two years, alone, without any support?"

Shaw snatched the rings off Sarah so violently that Chuck stepped forward to put himself between them, so it was his face that Shaw was shouting in a second later "She was Evelyn Shaw, Eve, My Wife!"

The man was so twisted that he actually tried to make this into a bonding moment with Sarah as he turned to her and said more quietly "We both made the same mistake Sarah, we both fell in love with spies."

The question that Chuck asked at that point dashed any chance there may have been (in Shaw's mind, there was no possibility anywhere else) of that actually being a moment.

"Did you find out about the loyalty tests that female agents were made to go through in the Ring before, or after, you sent your wife in there Shaw?" (He already knew the answer because Shaw had told them when he was telling them about the Ring, but he wanted him to come out and say it.)

Obviously Shaw wanted to lie, again, but he must have known from the question that they knew, so he just said. "Before."

No-one in the room said a thing, but the General cut in to ask "Chuck, what are these loyalty tests that you're talking about?"

Chuck kept looking at Shaw and was about to answer her, when Carina cut in to do it for him.

"As Shaw told us himself, any female agents joining the Ring are made to prove their loyalty by servicing their superiors, and anyone else they're told to, doing anything and everything they're told to, anywhere, any time, without complaint. Shaw made a point of telling us about all the disgusting acts that the Ring have forced many women to do when they joined the organisation."

In the dead silence that followed that, Carina's almost whispered follow up comment was clearly heard "Suddenly Forrest's handler doesn't look as bad."

The General's quiet response of "Not compared to that, no." also came through clearly.

Chuck turned to look at the Director's screen. "Director, Shaw is one of your's, how do you want to handle this?"

The disgust in the Director's face was obvious as he looked at Shaw. He turned back to Chuck "Do you or your team need him to answer any other questions at this time, Special Agent Carmichael?"

Chuck shook his head, "No sir", the Director nodded at that and told Shaw to report to CIA Station L.A. and stay there to await orders. Chuck looked at Casey, who nodded and escorted Shaw out.

When they'd left, Chuck turned to the Director's screen again, saying. "You are aware, I presume, sir that there's a good chance that Shaw will run?" That caught everyone's attention and they went quiet as the Director replied.

"Yes, but I'd be interested to hear your reasoning on this?"

"Well, for a start, Shaw's ego defines him, and it's taken a hell of a beating on this mission. First, he, like many male CIA agents that I've met, regards himself as irresistible to women, but when he made advances to Agent Walker she just shot him down without a thought, so that would have been a blow."

"Given that another attractive agent like Agent Miller was right here as well, most men would have moved on to try her when they were shot down that way, but Shaw's ego just wouldn't let him give up on Agent Walker, even when she'd threatened to kill him several times."

"Second, he came in here assuming that he would be king of the heap, in total charge of the operation and we'd all rush around to do his bidding because he was a Special Agent, but I shot him down on that, along with everyone else, and because of the way he'd been making advances to my partner, I'm afraid that I stepped on him pretty hard."

"Third, he had the belief (idiotic though it was) that no matter what he did, you, as his superior in the CIA, would back up anything he did or said, but you laid into him even harder than we did. If you don't mind me saying so sir, I think you may have gone too far in Paris, I presume from your comments and his reactions and the threats of revenge he made when he got here, that he received cavity searches followed by beatings in the interrogation?" Hanson nodded with a rueful expression on his face.

"But what was probably the biggest issue was his wife's rings, he was desperate to get his hands on her lock box before anyone else, and in my view that was to get rid of her rings before anyone else could see them. The obvious reason that he needed to do that was to avoid what just happened here, because as soon as her rings were found in there with the intel she'd collected from inside the Ring, anyone with any sense would know that he'd just sent her in there to get what he wanted with no care for what would happen to her. Therefore, it would be obvious that he'd just used and discarded her to further his career, which would have, I presume, effectively killed any dreams he may have of ever getting a Director's position?"

"So, considering everything that's happened to him since he came in here, if he has any sense, I'd expect him to run. The only question, really, is whether his ego will continue to override whatever intelligence he has. If his ego wins, he'll turn up at your L.A. Station with the belief that he can turn still the situation to his advantage, just because he's Special Agent Daniel Shaw. If logic wins, he'll run, and the obvious thing for him to do would be to run to the Ring."

"Thank you Agent Carmichael, you've presented some angles that I hadn't considered. In your opinion, which way do you think is more likely for him to go?"

"I'd say that it's pretty much fifty, fifty Director, but I think he's more likely to go with his ego, unless something else happens to turn him the other way. As you saw here, even after everything that had happened, his ego still made him make a play for Agent Walker, so obviously, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, in his mind he still had a shot with her."

"We'll see which side wins I suppose, and you're right, I did let things go too far in Paris, my anger at his rampant stupidity and making a laughing stock of the CIA got the better of me and I pushed him too hard. I also cut him off from our Paris office by keeping him locked in the airport with no contact to anyone else and had his CIA Amex card cancelled, so that he had to get back under his own steam. Not my finest moment I'm afraid."

He was quiet for a minute or so and then said "I'll set watchers on Shaw, if he comes in as ordered he'll be taken into custody until I can determine what to do with him, if he tries to run they'll capture him or deal with him. I'll let you know what happens."

Chuck nodded and said "Thank you Director." and Hanson nodded before cutting his link.

Sarah stepped up to Chuck and he put his arms around her.

Aunt D was still up on screen and she spoke up at this point. "I think we all need a break from this for a bit." When Chuck nodded she said that she'd put a hold on accepting any Intersect or Special Projects missions for a week, but the Operations Command, Piranha and analysis projects would have to continue. Chuck nodded again and she cut her link, too.

* * *

When they went up to the Penthouse, Chuck wanted to go to bed, but Sarah was worried about something, and asked him if he could find Evelyn Shaw's files for her, so they went into Dulcinea's Boudoir and he got into the CIA's archives.

When he'd brought up Evelyn Shaw's files, he handed the computer over to Sarah, and pretty much as soon as she sat down she said "Shit!" in a resigned tone. Chuck looked at the file but couldn't see anything obvious, so he asked "What is it?"

Sarah tapped on the screen that she'd brought Evelyn Shaw's image up on, and said, "I thought it was too much to be a coincidence when Shaw told us that the agent he'd sent into the Ring was a woman." She turned to look at him.

"While the CAT Squad was being wound up in Paris in 2005, Graham gave me a mission to eliminate a double agent. I should have asked more questions, but we were all a mess then after all the betrayals and with the uncertainty of what was gong on there, so I just followed orders after I'd put up a token effort."

"Anyway, given that I, myself, was one of those agents who'd used a different name for every mission (she glanced at him, adding "I'd often have two or three names in a week"), it wasn't hard to believe that they didn't know what name she'd be using. So when he just gave me the woman's pictures and common movements, I just went to the location and took her out, quick and clean."

She tapped the screen with Evelyn Shaw's image again. "The woman that I was ordered to eliminate as a double agent was Evelyn Shaw, Shaw's wife. The thing was, she looked like she'd welcomed death as if it would release her from whatever she was going through, she almost thanked me."

"That didn't make any sense to me at the time, but now we know what Shaw sent her into, it does. Carina spent nearly ten years trying to kill herself because of what she was being made to do, knowing that it was her own husband who knowingly sent her in to be forced to do the same type of things would have been so much worse for Evelyn."

What Sarah told him made Chuck feel ill, because it just emphasised how disgusting Shaw's actions had been, but then he had a realisation. "Shit, if Shaw finds out that it was you who eliminated his wife, he's bound to come after you out of some twisted form of justice, even though he was the one who'd already killed her on the inside. If I'd known about any of this I could have killed him while we had a chance."

After that, they both felt in need of a shower to feel clean again, so they went in together. Whatever doubts they may have had about Roan's thoughts regarding what would happen in the shower and spa bath he'd had installed in their ensuite, the fact that two or more people could shower comfortably at once was often quite handy.

* * *

When they were towelling off after the shower, though, Sarah suddenly stopped Chuck so she could look at his back. "Chuck, what treatments have you and Ellie been using for your scars?"

Chuck was confused. "What do you mean? We having been doing anything with the scars."

"Well, why are they nearly gone then? Here, look for yourself." With that she dragged him over to the mirrors so that he could see his back, and she was right, the line of bullet hole scars was almost gone, that made them look at his other bullet and knife wound scars, and they were largely gone, too.

This was truly bizarre, so Sarah called Ellie to come up and look, at least letting Chuck put his boxers on before she got there. When Ellie got there, she was as amazed as they were, but she was quite prepared to take their word on the fact that the scar from the bullet wound on his arse was fading as much as the rest were.

When she suddenly looked at them, they knew she had an idea what was doing this. Ellie said that she needed to run Chuck through a full battery of tests, but the only thing that made sense to her was the changes they'd made to the Intersect.

She was sort of talking to Chuck at this point, as he was the one who she'd been working on the changes with, but she was basically thinking out loud. "You know how we moved the physical trigger interfaces down to the level of the native control systems? Well what if they're low enough to trigger the body's core healing mechanisms now? How have you been feeling lately?"

Chuck was matching her contemplative expression now. "Quite good, actually, I've had more energy, and I feel more comfortable, nothing seems tight or limiting when I'm stretching, and I seem to be hitting harder and faster when I'm working on the bags."

They all looked at each other and Ellie nodded, "You're definitely getting a full battery of tests tomorrow!" With that, she went back to her apartment, doubtless to do some research to try and find something that would support or refute her theories.

True to her word, the next morning Ellie put Chuck through a gruelling schedule of physical and neurological tests, and as she'd expected, the scars weren't the things that were greatly improved. Chuck's lung capacity was significantly improved because all the scarring in his lungs from the various wounds and injuries he'd experienced over the years was pretty much gone. His heart was pumping a lot stronger, and all the other signs of internal patch ups to fix the damage from wounds or injuries were pretty much gone, too, so his body was operating rather better, and more efficiently, than it had before.

It was the results of the neurological tests that astounded her the most, though, as previously he'd had significant signs of damage from the first three Intersect versions he'd had (the one that Larkin sent him, the Fulcrum version, and a very early version that he'd loaded by accident when he went into his father's workroom when he was about ten). Most of that damage now appeared to be gone, and on top of that, his brain was showing a marked increase in the number of active pathways (for both activity and memory), as if his capacity in both had been increased.

When she was talking this over with Chuck, the same thought occurred to both of them, their father had loaded the same early version of the Intersect as Chuck had (he'd been working on the assumption that as Chuck had loaded it with no apparent issues, it was safe to load), but it had done significantly more damage to his brain. It had gotten so bad in fact that he'd had to build an external governor to suppress the Intersect's activity to try and ward off a meltdown of his brain.

This new version that Chuck and Ellie had reworked together should be considerably safer, as it was mapping the Intersect to the areas of the brain that had the most capacity, instead of the more limited higher logic areas that the earlier versions had mapped to, AND it was apparently hooking into the brain and body's core healing mechanisms to heal all existing damage and expand their capacity. If this was true for everyone else, as well as Chuck, this could mean that their version was safe for a lot more people, and that it could also act as an on-board repair kit.

The possibilities were mild blowing, but for now, it may at least be a way of at least getting their father back to where he was before he tried to load the Intersect (that wasn't his only problem, as he was a bit neurotic even before that, but it may fix a large part of his current problems).

* * *

Their jubilation over the possibilities of the Bartowski Intersect (as Ellie had coined it, BI for short) was dampened when Director Hanson came back to tell them that the CIA had lost Shaw. He'd been apparently on his way to the CIA's L.A. Station when he got a phone call, and then about five minutes later a car pulled up beside him, he jumped in and it took off, the ones following him had been on foot at the time, and they didn't have any vehicles nearby to keep track of the car with, so they'd lost him completely.

Chuck got the details of when and where they'd lost him and they brought up all the security and traffic cam footage from the area. They could see the car that he'd jumped into (the plates were off a stolen car, of course), and they pulled up enough images of the ones in the car for Chuck to confirm that they were part of the Ring. When Chuck informed him of that, Director Hanson was unhappy but not surprised, after all Chuck had predicted exactly this scenario yesterday.

Using security, traffic and satellite cameras, they tried to track the car, but the Ring had obviously planned this well, and they'd changed cars in an area that was free of any security or traffic cams, so they couldn't get enough detail on the new car to be able to track it.

Shaw was in the wind, with the Ring, they wouldn't have been that worried if it was just him, because his ego would have been guaranteed to trip him up if that was the case, but the Ring was run by brighter and more stable folk than him, and that made the situation more dangerous, especially with the fact that at least one side knew who had eliminated Evelyn Shaw now. Chuck looked at Sarah, but she shook her head, he raised an eyebrow and she shook her head again, but he kept looking at her that way until she reluctantly nodded and said "Director." "Yes, Special Agent Walker?"

"With the revelations of who it was that Shaw had sent into the Ring yesterday, I enlisted Special Agent Carmichael's assistance in getting information about Evelyn Shaw to confirm a suspicion that I had. Unfortunately when I checked the pictures in Agent Evelyn Shaw's files, those suspicions were confirmed. Director, in 2005 I was ordered by Director Graham to eliminate a double agent in Paris, and that double agent was Evelyn Shaw."

"I wasn't given anything other than her pictures and her usual movement patterns at the time to identify her, but as I informed Agent Carmichael, it was standard practice prior to the assignment I was then on for me to be given a new identity for each mission, so I could have two or three names in a week quite often, so it didn't seem too far out of the ordinary for them not to have a name to identify her by."

"When I confronted Agent Shaw, as I now know her to be, she seemed resigned, if not welcoming, to her fate. At the time I took it as confirmation that she was definitely the one I was sent to deal with and completed my mission, but as I also noted to Agent Carmichael, I'd found it strange that she appeared to embrace death as a release from what she was dealing with. Going by what we heard yesterday, I can unfortunately understand better why she may have felt that way now."

Director Hanson looked troubled. "So Director Graham ordered Evelyn Shaw's death?" Sarah nodded, saying that the mission should be in her files for August 2005. the Director said "One moment." and tried to pull up what was on file. They let him do it as there was supposed to be nothing left in the CIA files for Sarah, and sure enough he got 'Records Redacted' when he tried to bring up her file.

Chuck said "You'll have it in a moment Director" and dug Sarah's mission records for that period out of the pack that they had for her while Aunt D explained that by Presidential Order, all records relating to Agent Walker had been removed from the CIA filing systems when she left the CIA due to political issues that existed at the time.

Chuck sent Director Hanson everything on Sarah's missions for the CAT Squad and Anderson periods (four years), which would be enough for him to confirm that the time lines and details matched with what they had on record for Graham. Hanson saw what he'd done, and thanked him for that before pulling up what had been sent to Sarah for that mission, and cross checked it against Evelyn Shaw's file. There was no doubt that the reported double agent that Agent Walker had been sent to eliminate was Evelyn Shaw.

They had no way of knowing why Graham ordered Evelyn Shaw's death, unless there was something on file at Graham's end, and it would take Director Hanson a bit of time and effort to get access to that, but he had the same thought Chuck had. "If anyone tells Shaw this, he's bound to come after you Agent Walker." Sarah nodded. "Yes Director, we've discussed that." "I presume that you'll be taking all proper security precautions Agent Carmichael?" Chuck smiled grimly "Yes, Director."

Then Chuck added. "Speaking of security precautions Director, we will be monitoring the entry point that Agent Shaw knew about for our facility, and will have NSA resources on call in case the Ring attempts to breach our facility by brute force, can we rely on any CIA resources to assist us in that eventuality?"

The Director nodded "We have a SAD strike team based in L.A. and they will be available if you call."

Casey piped up at that point "Tell them it's Mowgli's house Director, that will improve their response."

The Director looked at where Casey's image was on the screen. "I imagine that that will mean something to them, is it the truth?" Casey nodded "Yes Director".

Hanson looked at him, he DID know about Mowgli, he'd been in a lot of serious operations over the past couple of decades and had been there when the legends of Mowgli started coming out, and if Mowgli was in this team, there was only one person it could be, because Casey was obviously Baloo.

He looked back at Chuck, there was a lot more to this young man than meets the eye, apparently. He had another thought and looked at Sarah, if Carmichael was Mowgli and Casey was Baloo, that would make Walker Shanti, and if so, this woman wasn't anything like what all the rumours about her said, she was something far more. Hanson's eyes suddenly widened as he realised that that meant that other, far less common, rumours about Walker were probably true, and those ones would also fit with Graham assigning her assassination missions.

Chuck saw the looks Hanson was giving them and knew that he'd worked a few things out from what Casey said, so he just nodded. Hanson nodded back, as he appreciated the mark of trust that they'd given him by sharing these confidences, with their history with the CIA, that was a big thing.

When the links had been cancelled, they talked over the implications. Shaw was with the Ring, he would almost certainly give up the location of the entry he'd used for the Dungeon, and if they had had any access to Graham, they may have proof that Sarah was the one who'd killed his wife, even if they didn't, it wouldn't be hard to convince Shaw of something like that.

They had plenty of cameras in the parking garage on that end of the access tunnel, so they'd see anyone coming, and also see if anyone else tried to set up cameras there, so that wasn't a major issue. They also had plenty of security on the tunnel, it would take quite some time for anyone to try and blast or cut through the blast doors that were set at every 100M along the tunnel, and they could gas (lethal or otherwise) or electrocute anyone trying to get through.

The issue of Sarah and Evelyn Shaw worried Chuck more. Shaw was an egotistical idiot who only reacted to what was in front of him, so if he was on his own it wouldn't be a worry, but if he was bring directed by brighter people who planned things out, then the mad dog could be dangerous.

Things were about to get more interesting for them.


	23. Shaw Shanked

**Fair bit of fluff in this one, may not be to most's tastes, but it's pertinent to the world they're living in, to me anyway, so that's how it's written.**

 **There is another part that isn't fluff, and I doubt that many will like that, either, but I'm guessing that at least one will.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

* * *

Given that the answers to many questions were in Graham's files, Chuck made it his mission to find them. He'd already discovered by hacking into all the CIA's systems that there wasn't much left on the CIA systems of Graham's records, so he decided to start searching through the CIA's back-up archives for files that may have been salted away in there.

That meant having someone move a truck load of tapes (well, lots of truck loads, more to the point) to a site that they set up so that they could suck it into a system that they could mine for the intel they wanted. His parents hadn't moved from D.C. yet, which was handy, as was what used to be Roark's money, which his dad now had, so he got his dad to acquire an industrial property and set up a massive storage silo with several petabytes of storage and banks of tape drives, and he inserted a series of tape movement orders that had the CIA's archive tapes moving around the centres for a while.

Graham had been in Deputy Director's level roles since at least the 1970s, so they grabbed the archive tapes for as far back as they'd go and copied them into the storage silo. When that task was completed (it took months to extract everything from the tapes), the silo was broken up and the framework and remaining drives were shipped to L.A. to be installed in a back corner of B3.

The tapes for the period that involved Sarah and the Shaws were copied first, and those drives were sent to Chuck straight away so that he could look for what Graham had hidden away in regard to Evelyn Shaw's elimination.

With the backup archives for the period, Chuck put together a lot of information about what Graham was doing. Even with what she was going through in there, Evelyn had been actually doing a good job of rooting out the Ring's secrets, and that was why she had to die.

Graham had promoted Daniel Shaw to Special Agent and assigned him has the lead agent for any investigations of the Ring purely because he knew that Shaw was an egotistical idiot who would never get close to anything important. By pandering to Shaw's ego and promoting him to be the Special Agent in charge of anything to do with the Ring, it meant that anything important that anyone else dug up would be funnelled into the black hole of Shaw's investigation, and disappear. What Graham didn't factor into the equation, though, was Shaw's willingness to sacrifice his wife for his own glory, or the fact that Evelyn was actually a much better spy than her husband ever was.

As a result, once Evelyn was inside the Ring, she extracted whatever information she could from those she was forced to service, and in between those demands, she was delving deeper into the Ring's records and structure. In 2005, Evelyn had found a key link between the Ring and the CIA and was trying to dig out the details of who that was. When she'd reported that to Daniel, he'd of course run straight to Graham with it to get his pat on the head, and that was why she died, because that link was Graham himself.

There were copies of files that showed what Evelyn had been delving into in Graham's files, along with the kill order that went to Sarah, and the video of the assassination itself. Evelyn's relief that her ordeal would be finally be over was obvious to anyone who watched the video, and in retrospect, Graham may actually have done her a kindness by assigning the task to Sarah, because if she had been faced by a man at that point, Evelyn may have been left with other memories in her last moments.

The reason to record the assassination was unclear, perhaps if Daniel Shaw or Sarah became a problem, he was going to show it to Shaw in an attempt to get Shaw to get rid of Sarah? No, Graham knew what Sarah was capable of, the intention must have been to get rid of Shaw by sending him after Sarah. Of course, this meant that the Ring did have the video to show to Shaw, Graham had it recorded for a reason and he would have made sure that copies were available wherever they could be used.

As none of this was damaging to Sarah at all, in fact it only supported what she'd told them, Chuck packaged up everything to do with the Shaws, including the video, and sent it to Director Hanson. Based on his sense of being able to read people, Chuck was confident that Director Hanson was an honourable man, and he'd use this intel appropriately.

* * *

Chuck had other problems around this period, ones that were unrelated to the military or intelligence issues that made up most of his world, no, these ones were much more troubling, because no-one he knew could help him with problems relating to teenaged daughters. The girls were fifteen now, and were getting interested in all the usual things that girls their age were.

Chuck and their mothers had always adopted an open and honest approach to anything that they wanted to discuss, but he couldn't come up with a response to their interest in boys and sex without appearing to be exactly what they accused him of being, a hypocrite (well, their actual words were more like "You're a fucking hypocrite Dad, you and Mom were BOTH much younger than I am when I was born, but you're trying to tell me that I'm too young to have sex?"). He had to concede that it looked like he was taking the "do as I say, not as I do" approach, but he was trying to explain his point without damaging his connection with the girls.

Chuck had tried to get advice from the older generation, but his mother, Emma, Aunt D and Uncle Bry just reminded him that none of them had really been part of their daughters' lives enough to be raising them when they were teenagers, the only one of them who had any experience of actually raising a teenager was Ellie, and that was raising HIM.

It also didn't help when Ellie pointed out that there was no point asking her advice on how to avoid this sort of situation, because the very fact that they were having this discussion showed that she didn't do much good on that front.

Eventually Chuck sat the girls down and talked it out with them, explaining that he didn't want to be a hypocrite, he was just worried about them, he wanted their first times to be magical and wonderful and something that they could look back on as one of the great moments of their lives, not bad memories of a bad experience. That was why he wanted them to be sure about the boys that they spent that moment with, that they cared about them, and that the boys in turn really cared about them and respected them.

This brought them to to point of the discussion that Chuck was dreading, the importance of contraception. He started out by reminding them that they were the best thing that had happened to their mothers and him. They looked at him and Charlotte (always the outspoken one) responded "Except Sarah." The honesty in his eyes when he replied "You guys are up there with her for me" put a stay on the discussion while they all had a happy, teary, father / daughter moment.

When they'd had that, he went on to the reason that he wanted them to be sure of using contraception when they decided that they were going to take that step, because he and their mothers wanted them to be able to look back on happy, carefree teenage years, they wanted their daughters to have what they didn't, and the same went for Aunt Ellie.

Their mothers and Aunt Ellie could tell them about what it was like to miss out on all the parties and freedom that their girlfriends had, because they were looking after kids and doing their best to raise them, and none of them wanted the girls to miss out on what was supposed to be the most fun of their lives.

It was Carla who spoke up this time "But Aunt Ellie didn't have a baby?" Chuck shook his head. "No, but she was looking after me and trying to raise me while she was trying to make something of herself, so she gave up the same things as your mothers. Our mother had to disappear because of the government when I was nine and she was twelve, then our father disappeared for the same reason when I was twelve and she was fifteen, and she gave up everything that your mothers did to do her best to raise me properly."

Lina piped up to say that she obviously did a good job, and Chuck nodded "Yes, she did, but that was in spite of me, I acted up and took things out on her that I shouldn't have, even though I was working for the government by then, too, so I should have been more mature about it."

"The point is, none of us had much fun in our teenage years, but we want you guys to, so please, wait until you're sure that the boy you want your first time to be with really means something to you, and you do to him, and use contraception so that you can enjoy the fun and freedom that being a teenager is supposed to be like, you can settle down and decide to be mothers after you've had your fun."

Lottie looked him in the eye and asked "Do you wish you'd waited for the right one instead of doing what you did?" but Chuck held her gaze as he said "No, I meant what I said, you guys are the best thing that's happened to me, but I went pretty wild for a while, I didn't say no to many of the girls who came after me. Your Aunt Ellie called me the biggest slut in California, and I'm afraid that she wasn't really wrong, but then something happened to change all that, your mothers told me that I had three little princesses for daughters, and when they did I gave pretty much gave up all those other girls for the three who meant the most to me."

He looked at all of them "I'm sorry that I missed so much of your lives, and I could only see you on weekends for years. I know I haven't been the best father, but I'm trying to do the best I can." That got him buried under his daughters' hugs as they reminded him of how often that he'd been there to help them with their gymnastics and dance practice, and how he'd been there to teach them martial arts, how to play instruments, languages, so many things. He'd also taken them to gymnastics, dance, swimming, soccer, everything, so he'd actually spent more time with them than over half of their girlfriends' fathers did when they were living with them.

After that, he got them to agree to talk to their mothers and make sure that they were protected (both ways, ready and equipped to deal with anyone who tried to force them into anything, and ready with contraceptives for when they decided the time was right for them) and they went on with their family weekend.

* * *

Throughout this period, they were still working on chasing down the Ring, and they had confirmation that Shaw had told them everything he knew about the team, because they could see Ring agents staking out the parking garage that he'd accessed the dungeon from, and also Ring agents were searching Glendale, trying to identify the location of their facility on the basis of what he'd told them.

For the most part, they left the Ring agents to potter around, just planting trackers and bugs on them and using them the gain more intel on the Ring. When they saw someone who was more senior they'd grab them for interrogation, and sometimes they'd grab some who were elsewhere in Glendale to point them in the wrong direction, but generally, as long as they were looking in the wrong places, they let them go.

* * *

As the disks that were being shipped in with the CIA archive information arrived, Chuck was running searches over them to locate anything to do with Graham, copying everything that came up to another area that he'd allocated for this. The picture that was emerging was extremely disturbing, because only about two thirds of what was there was related to CIA operations, the rest was related to Graham's own nefarious schemes and associations.

They received a mission from Aunt D that at first look didn't appear to be related to the Ring, there was a buzz going around that someone had developed a new type of weapon. He had been on the East Coast, but he'd disappeared over there and had just popped up on the radar in L.A. so Aunt D needed them to track him down. There wasn't much known about him other than that he was Manoosh Depak, an MIT student who had by all accounts been brilliant up until the point where he'd dropped out.

Part of the reason that she thought that they'd be perfect for this mission was the fact that Deepak had been studying the same subjects as Chuck had, so Chuck should be able to relate to him, and he should also be able to understand what this weapon that Depak had developed was. She gave them the available intel on Depak and Chuck and his crew (Jeff and Anna) tracked him down.

On paper, it should be fairly easy to work Depak, as he was a creature of habit and went off the rails as soon as his routines were disturbed. So, they got control of his favourite Mexican bar that he normally went to and set it up so that when he ordered the same thing that he always did, the Nacho sampler dish, he was told. "Oh, I'm sorry sir, for some reason there's been a run on the Nacho samplers today and we've run out of the makings, we won't be able to make any more for at least an hour or two when we've got more of the ingredients in, actually the man next to you got the last one."

At that Deepak turned to Chuck (as he was indeed the man next to him) and interrupted him to try and buy it off him. Under any other circumstances, the way that Depak rudely interrupted him when he was to all intents and purposes engrossed in the book he was reading would have put Chuck in the mood to just tell him to fuck off, but he was a professional so he played the game, telling him. "Sorry man, this is my favourite, it's the only reason I come in here, but here (pushing it over a little), you can share mine if you like."

They started talking over the Nacho sampler (most of which Depak was wolfing down), initially with Depak going on, and on, about the fact that this was the only place that got the Nacho sampler right, but they branched out from there, because the book Chuck had been reading caught his eye and they started talking about that, and their degrees (he was miffed when Chuck trumped his going to MIT with having his Masters in both Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Stanford, he would have been worse if Chuck had mentioned any of his other degrees) and then they got into what they'd been doing since they left university.

When Chuck told him about the businesses he'd created and was running, Depak's ego made him tell him about this ground breaking technology he'd developed for some organisation. He didn't go into any great detail, but what he did was enough to set off alarm bells, as it was sounding like Intersect technology.

At that point Chuck was interrupted by Anna calling from the van to tell him that they'd spotted teams of Ring agents heading towards the bar. Chuck tried to talk Depak into continuing their conversation somewhere else, but Depak was a lightweight and a few beers had already made him comfortably numb, so he just wanted to stay in the bar and talk there. When it was obvious how it was going, Zondra, who was in the van with Anna, said "I'm coming in" and she turned up at the door inside three minutes.

She attracted more than a few looks when she walked in the door (tall and beautiful will do that), but when she took off her coat to show off the "FRAK OFF" cropped T and miniskirt she was wearing (both Anna's, so they hardly covered her and the T-Shirt was rather strained, but she needed something to cause a distraction and what Anna was wearing was the only thing that fit the bill), she had just about every eye on her. Depak's eyes struggled on which to focus on, her long, toned legs (which looked all the longer with her heels and that tiny miniskirt), or her chest, which was straining the bounds of the T-shirt.

His distraction (along with everyone else's) made it a simple matter for Chuck to stick him in the neck with a tranq dart and then hoist him up out of the chair as he greeted Zondra with a kiss. They were about to head out the door, making it look like Chuck had been waiting for Zondra and he was helping his drunk friend, but Anna called to warn them that the Ring agents had almost reached the front door, so they headed out the back instead and she met them there as they exited, so they were away safely before the Ring could check out the back for Depak.

They got him back to the Dungeon and unfortunately for Zondra, as she was the last thing he saw before he went under, she had to be the one to work him. While she was doing that, Chuck went through everything in Depak's bag and found what he was looking for when he discovered the circuitry and flash storage hidden in a pair of sunglasses. He also found one of the specialised Ring phones, so he knew why the Ring had been coming after Depak at the Mexican bar, they wanted to retrieve their property.

Zondra didn't mind at all when the door suddenly opened and Chuck and Casey walked in, but Depak did, because he was sure that he was just about to get lucky with this beautiful woman, because she was already stripped down to her lacy lingerie and hadn't slapped him down like every other woman did when he tried it on with her. Chuck walked over to pick up a silk robe and bring it back for Zondra, while Casey grabbed Depak by the arm and hauled him off the bed.

After Chuck had helped her into her robe, Zondra decided to wind up the disgusting little pig who'd been all over her whenever he was conscious, so she turned around and stepped up to wrap her arms around Chuck's neck so that she could give him a long, passionate, kiss. The show she put on had the desired effect on Depak as he was stumbling along dejectedly with Casey dragging him out of the room.

When Chuck and Zondra came out of the room behind them (with Zondra still tying her robe), Sarah called out laughingly "OK, I'll let you have that one Zee, but that's the only get out of jail free card you get with my husband!", Zondra grinned back at her "Yeah, OK Sis." Anna called out "And you owe me a new T-shirt after you stretched mine like that!" then, and Zondra grinned at her, too as she nodded.

In the interview room, Chuck nodded to Casey to leave, and once he had, closing the door behind him, Chuck tossed the sunglasses on the table in front of Depak. "Tell me about these." Depak glared up at him, angry that the woman that he thought he was about to get lucky with had latched onto this guy right in front of him, rubbing his face in the fact that everything she'd done with him was nothing but an act.

He picked up the glasses and an idea formed in his brain, so he smirked as he said "Why don't I show you?" as he put them on, and then attacked him. He wasn't more than twenty seconds into his attack before he realised that this wasn't going at all the way it was supposed to. This nerd was somehow easily avoiding every blow or kick he threw at him, and to take matters worse, he wasn't even bothering to fight back, he was just taunting him by slapping him from time to time.

Chuck let the 'fight' go on for about a minute while he analysed the moves that Depak was making. Once he'd confirmed that all the moves he was making were from the Fulcrum Intersect database, he snatched the glasses off Depak's face and gave him one, final, slap across the face that was hard enough to bring him to his knees.

Casey came back into the room at that point and lifted Depak off the floor, depositing him back in the chair. Chuck handed the glasses to Casey and nodded to the door again. When the door closed again he started questioning Depak. "Who commissioned you to build these?" Depak just told him to fuck off, so he grabbed his neck, exactly where he'd grabbed Agent Johnson when he'd been trying to blackmail Sarah.

Depak screamed and Chuck repeated his question "I don't know, I don't know, they never said, they just came to me when I was back at MIT and told me that if I could build what they wanted they'd pay me fifteen million, so I'd have enough money to have anything I wanted, cars, women, anything. Wait, no, one of them did say something about a ring I think?"

"Where did you get the code that's in the glasses?"

"They gave it to me, along with the glasses and everything else, I just stripped it down to a shell that was hard coded to run these routines in real time, that was the only way to get it down to the size that could be mounted in the glasses."

"Why were they coming after you?"

"When I realised how much what I'd made was really worth, I tried to renegotiate, but they just said I'd made a deal and that they'd be holding me to it. I didn't think that that was fair, so I took everything I'd done and ran. If I can get my creation to Weap-Con I'll be a god, I could easily get ten, twenty times or more than what the measly fifteen million that Ring was going to pay me!" He looked calculatingly at Chuck, "If you let me go so I can get there to do the deal, I'll cut you in for a share Chuck, we can both be rich!"

Chuck looked at him disgust and then turned to the mirror behind him and waved Casey in again. After Casey had taken Depak to a holding cell, Chuck went to the conference room and brought up the link for Aunt D. He wasn't feeling too chatty after that, so he just went over the facts, the Ring had at least part of Fulcrum's Intersect technology and code, they'd engaged Depak to re-engineer the martial arts portion of the Fulcrum Intersect (and presumably other subsets of the Intersect) into a form that could be loaded into a pair of Intersect update glasses and input the signals in real time into the wearer, so they could utilise the Intersect without having to load the Intersect into the subject and burn out their brain.

Considering that Fulcrum Intersect's track record of burning out the brains of any subjects was no better than the CIA's had been, this was a logical move as it allowed parts of the Intersect to be used by ordinary people without any appreciable harm.

He went on to explain that he had the glasses that Depak had made, along with all his code and schematics that were on the drives that he'd had with him, and that they'd need to be careful about locking Depak away, because they knew how much that the Ring had infiltrated both the CIA and NSA, and given that the Ring knew that Depak had been successful once, they were bound to be making a serious effort to reacquire him to get him to do it again.

Aunt D organised to send a C-37 the next morning to collect Depak, with Chuck, Mei-Ling, Vincent, Rick and Vicky, along with the CIA's L.A. SAD strike team (Chuck had vetted everyone in that SAD team, well those few that he hadn't already known anyway), going along as security.

If Depak had displayed any redeeming qualities, at all, Chuck would have been remorseful about sending him to what was effectively a life sentence in a black site somewhere, but he'd made it abundantly clear that he was nothing but an egotistical, self serving little sleaze who didn't give a second thought to what might be done to innocent people with his creation, so that made the path that Chuck had to take to protect others from his greed and ambition quite clear.

They saw a few vehicles which were behaving suspiciously on the way to the airport, but they'd appeared to recognise the protective pattern of the SAD vehicles around them and backed off.

While they were in the air, Chuck called ahead to stage a diversion, they landed at an airstrip a few hundred miles out of the way and switched to another plane, while a drone sending the transponder codes of their original plane was sent to continue in along their original flight path, and sure enough, it was shot down by a surface to air missile just before it reached D.C. That appeared to confirm that the Ring was worried about their toys going to the good guys, and/or what Depak may be able to tell the other side about them.

One good thing came of that, though, well, two actually, first, seeing what was supposed to be the plane that he was on shot down by the Ring was enough to make a snivelling little worm like Depak suddenly become very cooperative. Also, according to what the Ring saw, Depak had been killed, so they'd hopefully forget about him now.

They still had to send teams out to the crash site to wipe out whoever the ring sent to check it out before they had a chance to report in that there wasn't enough wreckage for it to be a C-37, but that was easily enough done, and they salted Depak away in a black site that trusted parts of the NSA had total control over, so no-one should be able to find him.

While they were there, Chuck delivered the glasses and everything else he'd taken from Depak to Aunt D, so she could get his father and Leslie play around with them and decide whether it was an idea worth pursuing, and he got her to set up a meeting with the DNI.

The DNI meeting was to clue them in on what he was digging out of the files he was extracting from the CIA backup archives. He was still missing too many files to have anything definitive, but what he was seeing so far said that the reason that the Acting DCI had been Graham's choice for his replacement was because he was working with the Ring as well.

Providing that he got the confirmation that they needed to make a move, that obviously meant that that guy would have to be removed, and that led to another question, who would replace him? This was why Chuck wanted to talk to the DNI, because he believed that the best prospect would be the current CIA Director of Operations, Hanson, so he wanted the DNI to start looking into him and consider him for the role.

* * *

While he was there he also visited his father and Leslie and looked into the stealth transports that they'd been developing with their group of crazy genius inventor friends. These aircraft were loosely based on the Moller M600 concept, but with a lot of ground breaking engineering added. There were four different sized designs, the smallest was a six seater, that one was only the size of a small car (about 5M long), the next size up was twice the size at 10M, but it had more capacity than a C-26, the next size was twice as big again at 20M with more capacity than a DHC-7, and the biggest was also twice as big again at 40M with more capacity than a C-17.

Stephen and Leslie had a lot of radical ideas that they wanted to try with these yet, but they had flying versions of all four models already, and they were looking quite impressive in the initial testing. So far all the testing had been done via remote control (largely computer controlled), as Chuck's parents and Leslie weren't test pilots, his mother was rated on a few planes, but aside from that, his father's extensive experience of taking over remote controlled drones was the limit of their experience.

Now that their son, who was a certified test pilot and had the hours, if not the years, up to get his USAF Command Pilot's rating was there, they had their best qualified person on hand to test out the aircraft, so Chuck spent a day doing that. Stephen and Leslie had tagged the four sizes as Hatch (because the six seater was only about the size of a hatchback), Van, Truck and Semi, so the designations of the ones they had there were H1, V1, T1 & S1.

Chuck was pleased with the performance of the H1, as it was incredibly nimble, handled well, and the fact that a small VTOL craft could get close to transonic speeds was very impressive, he was even more impressed when he moved up to the V1, as it was almost as nimble as the little six seater, and pushed further into transonic than the H1 did, when these trends continued into the T1, and it could almost reach Mach 1, he was sure that that pack of mad geniuses had created something great. That was confirmed when he moved to the S1 and it retained the same capabilities as the T1, he was flying a transport that could carry more than a C-17, had trans-continental range, full VTOL capabilities, could push Mach 1 and it could be thrown around like a small plane.

When they showed him what they were working on for the next versions of the aircraft, he was amazed, his father had bought the rights to use the designs of an experimental near hypersonic transport, and some of the things that had been created for that had very interesting possibilities, the hybrid engines had already been retrofitted into the VTOL transports, and they were what gave them the speed and range they had.

There were also plasma emitters to generate a barrier layer over the skin of the aircraft that reduced drag and the effects of supersonic shock, on the wind tunnel tests these showed the capability of significantly increasing the speed and range of the aircraft over what they already were, and those two were working on incorporating these into an active camouflage/solar cell skin that would cover the aircraft and make them almost undetectable.

On the way back to L.A. Chuck spent most of the time thinking about the possibilities of the Wraith aircraft, as their mad scientists were calling the next generation they were coming out with, and he was excited. As a pilot, he'd flown some of the most advanced aircraft available, but these machines were way ahead of anything he'd ever flown before.

* * *

As soon as he got home, he was dragged straight back into everything, because the Ring was stepping up the searches for them, they were seeing more teams abound Glendale, and those teams were being backed up with other teams to make it harder to take them out.

The team kept their heads down until Daniel Shaw started being seen, but even though they knew that there was a chance that Shaw was being put out there to draw them out, they couldn't resist going after that bastard.

When Sarah got the alert that Shaw had showed up, she knew that Chuck would decide to deal with him for her if he knew, but she had to deal with this bastard herself, for Evelyn's sake as much as her own, so she went and grabbed Carina and they slipped out to go slug hunting.

Sarah knew in the back of her head that she was being irrational and she worried about that, but she HAD to get that bastard, and Carina had been put in a similar position to what Evelyn had by enough of those scum to want to help her.

Chuck called out to ask Sarah something about ten minutes later, when she didn't answer he looked in her office, and then checked on her computer when she wasn't there. He saw the alert on screen for Shaw and transferred the location signal for him, Sarah, and Carina (as she was Sarah's most logical partner in this) to his phone and ran out, pulling on his tactical gear as he went. He took the Harley to shave as much of the time gap off as he could. Casey saw him running out and worked out what had happened, so he called out for the others and ran after Chuck.

When Casey heard Chuck's Harley leaving he decided to do follow his example and hopped on his own, there was no way he could keep up with Chuck on his machine, but at least he could get around obstructions the same way as Chuck.

When Sarah and Carina reached the office building, it was looking suspiciously quiet, but they had Shaw's signal and they headed in. They got up to the third floor before they encountered any resistance but then they were immediately separated by the men that attacked them. Sarah was driven back through a door, and when that door closed and locked behind her, she realised that the whole thing had been a setup, and that she didn't know what she'd gotten herself into.

On the other side of the door, Carina was taking on the six guys who had attacked them, and those guys were trying to work out how one fuck toy was holding them all off the way she was. She wasn't supposed to know anything but a thousand and one ways to blow a guy's mind, but here she was, showing that she could obviously take on any one, or two, or more of them without trouble.

After this had gone on for about ten minutes, they decided 'screw their orders, they were just going to blow this bitch away', so they pulled their weapons and started emptying them at her. Carina dove for cover when they pulled their weapons, and with all of them firing at her she had to keep her head down, so they decided that if they just kept pouring enough rounds at her they'd get her soon enough.

Unfortunately for them, soon enough wasn't, because Chuck appeared from the stairway behind them at that moment and put rounds in the heads of each of the five left alive in less than three seconds all up. When the shooting stopped Carina popped her head up and when she saw Chuck she pointed at the door Sarah had gone through and screamed "There, there! Sarah went through there and it locked behind her!"

Chuck pulled out his phone with the digital lock breaking tools and got to work on opening the door.

* * *

Meanwhile, back on the other side of the door, Sarah wasn't alone, Shaw was in there with her. As soon as he started talking, she knew that he wasn't just an egotistical idiot any more, he was absolutely crazy.

Shaw started ranting. "I've seen the video Walker, I saw you kill my Eve, and you're going to die for that! First, though, you're going to show me what you showed Graham, Larkin, Bartek and everyone else, just how good a fuck you really are! Hell, if you're as good as they all say, I may just keep you around for a while and let you make up for the years that I've been without my Eve, because you murdered her!"

"Do you really think I'm going to let you lay a finger, or anything else on me Shaw? There's no way I'd ever let anything like you touch me! Not even before I'd met Chuck."

Shaw let loose a maniacal cackle. "There's no way you can stop me Walker, it's not just the NSA that has the Intersect, and I have the Ring's Intersect in me now, you can't do a thing against the power of the Intersect!"

Sarah smiled grimly "Let's see about that, shall we?"

Shaw moved in, supremely confident that she'd be down and he'd be tearing her clothes off in seconds, but when he engaged, he got the same shock that Depak had when he'd attacked Chuck, he couldn't get near her!

Sarah easily dodged or deflected every blow, every kick, as if she was playing with a five year old. Shaw couldn't understand it, there was no way this could be happening, when he'd loaded the Intersect module he'd sparred against other Ring agents and he'd easily left them all broken and bleeding on the floor, how could this woman resist his attacks?

Shaw's panicked internal dialogue was interrupted by Sarah's laughter. "What's the matter Shaw, girls aren't as easy to beat up as they used to be?" Her hand darted out to slap him across the face, and he suddenly realised that she'd just been toying with him. He doubled his efforts, but it was like a toddler trying to hit their parents and she laughed again. "This is what happens when you believe your buddies Shaw, you've been fooled, and now you'll be schooled." She slapped his face again and easily dodged his his attempts to hit her back.

"You see, pathetic bastards like you have always lapped up the lies that the other pathetic bastards like Larkin came out with, because you desperately wanted to believe the dream that it could be you who got the treatment from Graham's favourite, because she had to be SO good at it to be his favourite, and you're right, I AM good at it, but your problem is that you're all wrong about what IT is."

Sarah quickly stepped in and grabbed Shaw's arm, shattering the elbow and separating his shoulder with a lightning fast blow before she stepped back. "You see, I was never Graham's toy or bed warmer, I was his Enforcer." Another lightning fast kick shattered Shaw's knee, he was barely keeping himself off the floor now. "I was ALWAYS better than you could ever hope to be Shaw, but since I've been with Chuck, I've gotten much better."

Another blow shattered Shaw's jaw, but she was careful not to knock him out. "So you see, it doesn't matter what edge you think you've gotten from the Ring's Intersect, you were never going to take me, in a fight or any other way!" She stopped to look around, and walked over to a 1/2" thick glass partition across the office. A palm strike shattered the partition, and she picked out half a dozen shards, 8-14" long and 1-2" across before returning to Shaw and picking up the conversation where she left it.

As the first shard was going slowly into Shaw's shoulder she went on "Graham never wanted anyone to know who his Enforcer was, because the uncertainty just added to their fear, people wouldn't say or do anything against Graham for fear that the person that they were working with was the Enforcer, and would kill them for it."

The next shard slowly went through Shaw's stomach as she continued, raising her voice to be heard over his screams. "Now the reason that Larkin told all those stories was to cover up the fact that I was the one who did everything that he took the credit for when we were partners, and to salve his ego because I refused to sleep with him most of the time."

"So that was his way of playing the big man, take all the credit for my work that made our missions a success and tell all of you pathetic bastards in great detail how many times and how many ways he'd taken the great Sarah Walker, and you all lapped it up, because you had the same pathetic fantasies of having me or any other woman any way you wanted."

She looked at him for a bit, and then started pushing the next shard lengthwise through his thigh. "Of course, none of you ever did, or ever will, have a chance of living any of those fantasies with me, or any other self respecting woman, but that never stopped you, did it? You just kept trying to push yourself on any woman who you thought couldn't say no to you."

The next one was slowly going lengthwise through his biceps as she continued. "But even with how pathetic and disgusting the rest of them are, even Larkin, you're the worst Shaw, because you forced your WIFE to fulfil all those other disgusting bastards fantasies in the hope that she'd you get the information that you needed to give you your big break and get you the exalted position that you thought was your right without you having to do anything to get it."

"The biggest laugh is that Graham only picked you because he knew you were a pathetic loser who would never turn up anything of use, but you even managed to turn that to a new low, because when Evelyn did find something important in the hell that you put her in, you took that straight to the man that she was about to uncover, so he ordered her killed."

Sarah looked over the last two shards, pushing the smaller one into Shaw's other shoulder before slowly pushing the last large one up through his stomach, making sure to nick enough organs to ensure that he'd bleed out internally. "Do you know that Evelyn tried to thank me when I released her from the hell that you'd forced her into? I never understood that until you told us what you'd done to her, so this is for her, I only hope that she gets a sense of justice from it. Goodbye you pathetic bastard, rot in hell!"

With that she stood and turned to face her husband, who'd entered about halfway through her 'fight' with Shaw. She'd seen when he entered that he was furious with her for putting herself at such risk, and he still was, but his fury had abated a little as he listened to what she'd said about Evelyn.

He looked at her "I thought we had a deal, I've played by your rules, haven't taken crazy risks, because you told me how much it frightens you when I do that, and now you do this?"

"I know, you're right, I've exactly what I begged you not to do, but I couldn't stop myself, I had to deal with that for Evelyn." She waved to where Shaw was still writhing on the floor in agony, but his movements were slowing now as he bled out.

"I'm not going to ask you to forgive me, because what I did to you is unforgivable, but Chuck, I think that there's something wrong with me. I knew that what I was doing was crazy, but I HAD to do it."

Chuck's anger changed to concern. "Are you alright? Do you have a headache?"

She shook her head. "No. I feel fine, actually that (waving at Shaw) was quite a release. It's just the fact that I HAD to do something that I knew was quite irrational, and put everyone at risk."

Sarah stopped at that "Where's Carina, is she OK?" He pulled her into his arms and soothed her. "She's fine, she had a bit of a fight on her hands after they locked you in here with Shaw, but I got them while they were shooting at her."

She nodded but didn't say anything, just standing there in his arms with her head on his shoulder, so Chuck gave her a squeeze and suggested that they go home, she nodded again and stepped back, but was gripping his hand tightly as they walked out.

Casey looked a question at Chuck as they exited the building and Chuck just nodded. Carina asked "Where's Shaw?" Chuck looked at her, but just shot his thumb back over his shoulder, he wasn't too happy with his sister in law at the moment, either, for failing to stop Sarah doing this.

Chuck started the Harley and Sarah threw the Porsche's keys to Carina, then they headed home.

As soon as they got in, Chuck insisted that Ellie check Sarah out to see whether there was any apparent reason for her behaviour, and Sarah was worried enough herself not to argue, so she went down to B3 while Chuck got Ellie. Without Sarah there to hear, Chuck asked Ellie what he was most afraid of. "Could it be the Intersect? We thought it was safe because it worked for me, Dad and you, but could it be making her do irrational things like this?"

Ellie grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye "Chuck, Stop!" "That's a possibility and I'll check it out, but I don't think so, we did all the tests and she's been fine, and what's more so have Carina and Zondra. I just don't see all of us and her sisters being fine and it causing a reaction in Sarah. But I promise you that I'll check everything and we'll find it, OK?"

Chuck nodded, but he tried to argue when Ellie told him to go upstairs, because he'd just set Sarah off when they were trying to do the tests, with him being this nervous. He tried, but Ellie could still channel her mother mode and made him do as she said on this.

Sarah and Ellie were down in the Medical Centre for over an hour and a half, and Ellie came up with Sarah to talk to Chuck. Ellie looked at Sarah, but she shook her head, so Ellie turned to Chuck and said "We think we found what caused Sarah's behaviour today." "Is it the Intersect?" That got Sarah's attention because she hadn't considered that, and now she realised why he'd been looking so worried, if he'd thought that the Intersect may be screwing with her head.

"Chuck, stop! NO, it's not the Intersect, it appears to be a hormonal imbalance."

"What? What would cause that? Is it serious, is it curable?"

"Stop worrying, it's a temporary condition, it'll all come good in six months or so."

"What are you talking about? Why would it magically come good in six months?"

"I thought you were supposed to be a genius little brother, you work it out!"

"Ellie, stop, he's had as bad a day as I have, maybe worse, I remember what it felt like when he ran off to do something crazy. Chuck, what Ellie's trying to say, but is being a bitch about it, is that I'm pregnant, nearly three months apparently, I don't know how I've missed the signs for the past couple of months, but according to the OB/GYN information in the Intersect, everything is developing properly and everything is fine."

Chuck was staring at Sarah "We're going to have a baby?" She nodded happily "Two, actually."

"Twins?" She gave another happy nod and then started to cry "I'm sorry about what I did, I just couldn't stop myself."

He pulled her into his arms and was telling her that it was OK when Ellie stretched up to kiss him on the cheek and rubbed Sarah's back before heading down to her own apartment.


	24. Hey, Dad

**Before anyone says "He was never called Alexander John Coburn in the series", check Versus Santa Claus, when he calls his "loved one" he says "Mother, Johnny Boy", "Johnny Boy" doesn't sound like something he'd use with the General to me, so if it was actually his mother he was talking to, then he was known as Johnny Boy at home, ergo John, that's enough for me.**

 **Also, when changing a soldier's name, it'd just make sense to keep his given name as something he could relate to, spies may be able to get used to changing their names for missions, but I don't see soldiers getting used to it.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

* * *

The news about Sarah's pregnancy excited the whole family, though it just made Chuck's reaction to Carina that much worse, because she'd gone along with her crazy scheme and had actually helped her get into that dangerous situation when Sarah was pregnant with their babies, it would take a while to mend that rift.

Chuck and Carina avoided each other for a while, they'd work together at PS&T, on the Special Projects or Intersect team operations, or in Operations Command, when they had to, but they didn't speak any more than necessary.

* * *

Their friction was overshadowed by Casey being contacted by the officer who'd actually created John Casey, though.

Casey's initial reaction was to hang up on Keller, but he decided that he had to find out what he was after, so he played along with him, and set up a meet at his old house in the suburbs.

While Casey filled Chuck and the others in on what had happened twenty years ago, Carina and Zondra went out to clean the house up and make it look lived in before heading back to Casa Bartek to wait with Vincent and Mei-Ling, in case he needed assistance.

In January 1989, First Lieutenant Alexander Coburn was advised by the Lieutenant Colonel processing the soldiers trying to get into training that he hadn't qualified for training with Special Operations command and that he was being sent back home to his unit. He couldn't understand that, he'd always been one of the best at what he did, but he wasn't one to argue with a superior officer, so he just accepted it.

As he walked away from the tent in dejection, though, he was accosted by a Colonel, James Keller, who'd made him an offer to join a NSA black ops team, selling it up on the basis that it was his chance to truly serve his country, but to do that, Alex Coburn had to die. At that moment he couldn't see anything else but the shame of going back because he wasn't good enough, and duty was something he couldn't turn away from, so he'd agreed.

After he'd agreed to take Kellers' offer, Keller had made him call Kathleen, his fiancé, and pretend that everything was fine, even though he was about to disappear out of her life. Kathleen had just started to tell him something when Keller took the phone off him and hung it up. The next day, Alexander John Coburn had officially died, to be replaced by John Casey.

"The training when I went into the black ops group was brutal, but I stayed at the front of the group all the way through. Actually that was what made me think about how things had gone that night, I was told I was a wash out, which didn't make sense, and then Keller just happened to be right there to make me an offer? It had to be a setup." Chuck nodded at that, and said that he'd look into it.

"Anyway, I got through training at the top of the heap, and went into the NSA black ops strike teams, but like Bry in SAD, I was getting loaned out to work with agents in the field, so they put me through the field agent training at the Farm, and I moved into that side of the operations.

I came under the General's command for a few missions early on, and the powers that be must have decided that she managed to get the best out of me, because I ended up assigned to her command. About three and a half years later she started assigning me to watch out for a thirteen year old kid and his sixteen year old sister, and you know where the story went from there."

"So now Keller calls me out of the blue about twenty years later and says that he has a deal that I can't refuse? There's something going on here, and it isn't going to be good."

Chuck had gotten an information flash on Keller when Casey had first mentioned his name, but he was letting Casey finish his story, and now he had, Chuck responded.

"Yeah, Keller is actually Ring, he was dishonourably discharged in the mid '90s for some unauthorised illegal operations and he appears to be one of the original Ring members in the USA, so this will be for something that the Ring wants. The question is, what does he think he has over you that would make you cooperate with him?"

Casey shook his head, "I don't know, but I have to talk to him to find out, so I'll head out to the house in an hour or so at 1700."

Chuck nodded "You may want to change into the CCE T-shirt etc to keep your image closer to what he expects from you?" Casey nodded at that, saying "Good idea, yeah, I'll do that."

* * *

Casey headed off in his Crown Vic at 1700 to the house, apparently coming home from a boring cover job. Fifteen minutes later a very frumpishly dressed Mei-Ling came knocking at his door "Mr Casey, can you help me please? My washing machine has stopped again, and you are the only one who can to fix it."

That got a wry smile out of Casey, to see the amazing woman who was China's top spy and assassin playing a frumpy Asian housewife who couldn't do anything. "Sure Mrs Lee, I'll just grab some tools and come up."

With a glint in her eye, Mei responded "Oh, thank you so much Mr Casey." and she toddled back to "her" house, Casa Bartek. When Casey turned up with his bag of tools, she let him in deferentially, like a good Asian housewife, but he chuckled and made some crack about her doing the middle aged housewife impression well as soon as he was in the door.

In a flash, she'd taken his legs out from under him and was on top of him, kissing him frantically and grinding on him so that he could hardly remember his own name, either of them. They were both totally into it for about five minutes and then Mei pulled back, got off him and stood up, asking angrily "Was that like a middle aged housewife John?" and rushed off to the bathroom to regain her composure.

The others just stood there, staring, that was the sort of thing that they would have expected Carina to do, NOT Mei. Zondra was also distracted by the the erection that Casey was very obviously sporting, but Carina had already been there and done that so she was looking after Mei, wondering where the hell that had came from.

When Mei hadn't come back ten minutes later, Carina went to talk to her and make sure she was OK. She was OK, just still extremely embarrassed about what she'd done. She tried to talk it out. "I don't know what came over me, I just got mad when he was laughing at me for putting on the Asian housewife act and I wanted him to see me as a woman, to look at me the way he looks at you."

Carina put her arms around her "Believe me Mei, you don't want John to look at you the way he does me, he still doesn't have a lot of respect for me because of how I used to behave, but he does respect, and like, you." She smiled at her, "I can tell you one thing, though, if you do take it there, John is a very gentle and considerate, and good, lover."

Mei stepped back to look at her. "Are you...?" Carina smiled again as she shook her head. "No, we're not together, but we've had our fun a few times over the years. He's a good man, he deserves a good woman like you. Now, are you OK? Are you ready to come out so we can talk about what we need to do to support him when he deals with this guy from his past?"

That got a hesitant nod and they went out, as soon as she came out, Casey tried to apologise for what he'd done, but she cut him off to apologise in turn, and as this wasn't getting them anywhere, Zondra cut them both off. "OK, you both screwed up and you're sorry, but we don't have time to go into that now, we need to lay out the game plan so that Casey can go back and meet this guy."

It wasn't the most subtle way of handling the situation, but it was effective, so they both nodded and Casey gave them the cliff notes version of what was happening, he knew that they'd turned on the recording devices in the house when they cleaned up, and he gave them the signal that he'd use if they were to come in and grab Keller, if he didn't they were to let it pan out.

With that, he gently squeezed Mei's shoulder and headed back to the house.

* * *

Colonel Keller turned up after 1900, and he tried to make it a friendly chat, but Casey just said "Colonel, you haven't turned up after twenty years just to chat about old times, what can I do for you?"

Keller wasn't too happy for Casey to take control of the discussion off of him, but he just went with it. "In the morning, your team will be allocated a trace cell mission for the CIA secure archives in D.C. and we need you to collect something for us."

"Who's we, Colonel?"

"The people I work for John, you don't need to know any more than that."

"I think I do Colonel." Keller threw a folder on the table in front of him "No, you don't."

Casey looked in the folder, and saw pictures of an older version of Kathleen, the fiancé that he left behind, along with a young woman who was obviously her daughter. He tensed, but forced himself to remain casual as he said "So? Yeah, she was my fiancé, but she's obviously moved on as that looks like that's her daughter with her."

Keller smirked at him "Keep looking John."

Casey looked under the photos, and there was a birth certificate for Alexandra McHugh, born in August 1989, and his eyes were drawn to the father's name, Alexander Coburn.

Keller smirked at him again as he smugly said "That's why you're going to do this no questions asked, John, because we can get to your daughter and her mother any time we want, and I'm sure you don't want to lose them again so soon after you've found them."

Casey wanted to kill the bastard now, but he couldn't do anything until they had Kathleen and his daughter somewhere safe.

"What do you want me to get?"

"If you keep pushing me by asking questions, John, we may have some fun with them just to teach you a lesson, Kathleen is still quite a looker, and so is your daughter."

"If any of you lay one finger on them Keller, I'll tear you limb, from limb, from limb!"

"How am I supposed to know what to take to bring it out if I have no idea what it is? Do I need a trolley, a bio containment cylinder, a lead lined box, what?"

"Relax, you can put it in your pocket, here." He threw a digital key on the table. "I'll expect to hear from you as soon as you get back."

With that he turned and walked out.

Five minutes later, Mei slipped in the back door. Casey was still sitting at the table, looking at his daughter's birth certificate, fighting back tears, this must have been what Kathleen had started to tell him, that they were going to have a baby. Somehow Keller must have known that, because he'd grabbed the phone off him and hung it up, but he never would have left if he'd known about her.

Mei pulled his head into her chest and he put his arms around her, this was something that he never would have done normally, but he was all at sea, and she was his anchor at that moment.

When Casey had settled down, they started a video conference, bringing in the ones at Casa Bartek, Chuck and Sarah at Quixote House, and the General. When the links came up, the others noted Mei holding Casey's hand, and the fact that he appeared to need it, whatever had happened was something big, but they decided to let him tell them when he was ready.

At first, he just talked about what Keller was demanding from him. The General confirmed that they'd just received the Trace Cell mission to test the security of the CIA's secure archives, and Chuck brought up the information on the contents of the box that Casey was tasked with emptying.

Keller had been right about the portability, what that box held was the samples of an experimental drug, Laudenol, which was designed to suppress all emotions, the idea was that if soldiers felt no fear, excitement or other human emotions, they would be able to function more efficiently on the battlefield.

Chuck dug out all the information there was on the Laudenol's indicators and effects, and used Fulcrum's drug and poisons database to turn up a combination of other drugs that would simulate the effects of the Laudenol for half an hour to an hour, that would allow them to replace the Laudenol with a less dangerous fake.

Eventually, the General decided that she couldn't wait for Casey to bring up the reason for complying with Keller. "John, what is he holding over you?"

Casey held up the birth certificate to the camera. The General was having trouble reading it, but Chuck, Sarah, Carina and Zondra weren't, there were a few gasps and Sarah said "You have a daughter Casey?" He just grunted, he wasn't handling this well, but Mei squeezed his hand and Carina said, "Yeah, that's why Keller's so sure that Casey will comply, here."

Carina played the clip of Keller saying that they could get to them any time they wanted, and also the one about having fun with them to teach him a lesson. The growls that could be heard weren't just coming from Casey, Chuck and Sarah were growling too, it was obvious that, as soon as they had Kathleen and Alex somewhere safe, Keller and co were in for a world of hurt.

Chuck and Sarah were thinking about what they'd do if anyone threatened the girls, or their children on the way, like that, and the others could see the faces that spelt death for someone. Chuck had already dug up Kathleen and Alexandra's address, so he left the decision to Casey. "Are we picking them up now, or are we shadowing them until we come back from D.C. so we can get Keller and the rest?"

Casey hadn't thought that far ahead, he was only thinking of doing what it took to make sure that Alexandra, and Kathleen, were safe. Chuck had brought up all the details for the two women on a screen in the boudoir, and Sarah cut in then. "OK, it looks like Mei and Anna are close to Kathleen and Alex's size, with wigs and makeup they should be able to fool Keller's goons as long as they don't get too close, and if they do get that close, they can kill them."

She looked up at the screen and asked Mei whether she'd be prepared to do that? Mei nodded and said "Of course." At the same time, Chuck sent a text to Anna to ask her to come up now, but it was a given that she'd volunteer too, that just left how they were going to bring the women in. The safest way would be to tranq them and transport them unconscious, so after Anna had turned up and said she was in when she heard what was going on, they put together a team to go and bring the women in.

Keller must have been confident that Casey couldn't find them on his own and wouldn't risk bringing anyone else into it, because he didn't have anyone watching the women yet. That made it a much simpler job. They slipped in and tranqed the women, carrying them out to the van and taking them back to Quixote House while Mei and Anna took their places.

The suggestion to keep them sedated for the duration was vetoed by Ellie (as the team's doctor) as they didn't know what that would do to their systems, so when they came to, Vincent and Ellie informed them that they'd been taken into protective custody because there was a terrorist who was planning on using them as leverage to force someone to do something for them.

They explained that leaving them out there would have put them at risk, so they'd been brought in and a couple of federal agents had taken their places until this was over. They of course demanded to know exactly what was going on, who they were supposed to be used as leverage over, and to be released, but Vincent politely told them that he couldn't share those details or do that as yet.

Hearing what was being called after them as they walked away, Ellie thought that John certainly had a type, because Kathleen could swear like a trooper when she was riled.

* * *

The next morning Chuck, Sarah, Casey and Carina hopped on the C-37 to D.C. to do the Trace Cell mission. Chuck and Ellie had prepared the fake Laundenol capsules the night before, and they behaved as expected, so they'd do the substitution and leave the real Laudenol in the box that they were getting the mission test package from.

The Trace Cell mission went smoothly, they collected what they were supposed to, left the Laudenol in the General's secure box, and got out. The ease with which they got through the so-called security measures was a concern, and the presentation of their verbal reports was made much more aggravating by the self important little tool who'd been sure that his controls were impregnable, Stanley Fitzroy.

They probably shouldn't have laughed when Carina went off at him, but it was just so fitting because of the way he'd been following all of them around constantly asking stupid questions about how they got through his controls, so when Carina ended up screaming at him "Fuck! If I let you sniff my arse and get it over with will you get the fuck away from me?" they'd all burst out laughing, even some of the Senior CIA people in the room were having difficulty keeping a straight face after that.

At that point Chuck decided that they'd had enough and he informed the CIA that the briefing was over, they would supply detailed reports of where the controls failed, but they were not going to waste any more time going over the same things again and again.

They stood and headed for the door, but Chuck stopped when he heard a comment one of the CIA officials made about Sarah (he had to talk to Ellie about that, on top of everything else, his senses seemed to be heightened now). Casey looked at him, but Chuck signalled him to get the girls out of there. The look on his face told Casey that someone was going to be in a world of hurt because of something that they'd done, so he did as Chuck asked.

As soon as they'd left, Chuck walked over to the one who'd spoken and asked him what he'd said. The guy repeated his comment about what he'd like to do to her in even cruder terms and turned to walk away from him, which gave Chuck the perfect opportunity to hit him with nerve strikes to the S2-S4 area at the base of his spine, destroying the nerves there.

The others descended on Chuck but he easily subdued them, the guy that he'd hit was laughing at him and told them not to bother, saying that not only did he attack from behind, but he was useless, punching him in the back without doing damage? This guy was nothing but a pathetic wuss! What they couldn't understand was why Chuck had a cold smile on his face as he walked right up to the guy and quietly told him (too quietly for anyone else to hear).

"That was my wife that you were talking about arsehole, so yeah I wanted to kill you, or at least do serious damage to you. But then I decided that it will be far worse for something like you to go on living, knowing that you will never get aroused, never get an erection, ever again, for as long as you live. From now on, your sex life will only consist of taking it, rather than giving it. Enjoy the rest of your life you bastard."

The guy looked horrified at that and grabbed at him, but Chuck shook him off easily, then casually walked out the door as the guy frantically unzipped his pants and tried to masturbate.

In the plane on the way back to L.A. a call came through from Aunt D. The others looked at Chuck when they heard the worry in Aunt D's voice as she asked "What did you do to him Chuck?" Casey did get a bit of a chill when Chuck calmly explained that it was a localised nerve strike that only effected the nerves that controlled arousal and erection, but the strike destroyed those nerves.

When Aunt D said he couldn't go around doing that, he repeated both things the guy had said about Sarah, and said that the alternative would have had far worse repercussions, and would have required a lot bigger cleaning bill. Then he changed the subject and reminded her that she had to set up a meeting with the CIA to find out who'd had possession of the key that the Ring gave to Casey to get into that secure box in the most restricted area of the secure archives, as whoever that person was had obviously been compromised and would have to be dealt with.

When she tried to go back to the original issue, he cut her off angrily, saying. "The bastards in the CIA will either learn to control themselves, or there will be a lot more eunuchs in the CIA soon enough, because this is the solution that I will be employing to the problem that they represent from now on. I can't see how you, as a woman and a mother with a daughter, wouldn't be on board with this solution." With that he disconnected the call.

* * *

When they got back to L.A. Casey called Keller and set up a meet, while Chuck organised some clean up teams, and made sure that Bry, Vincent and Zondra had slipped into Kathleen's house to back up Mei and Anna, because they knew that as soon as Casey handed over the "Laudenol", Keller would be sending people after Kathleen and Alex.

They knew that the plan would be to hold them to try and make Casey turn and join the Ring, and if Casey wouldn't turn, Keller would definitely do what he'd threatened before to them. Knowing how someone like Keller operated, even if Casey did turn, as soon as he thought that Casey had outlived his usefulness or he thought that Casey wouldn't find out, it was almost certain that he'd follow through on his threat against them, just for the hell of it.

Chuck and Sarah had the first of their pregnancy related fights over her coming along to take out Keller and his men at the meeting. Chuck argued that it was too dangerous, while Sarah was adamant that she wasn't sitting this out. Eventually they agreed to settle on Sarah staying with the Control Van and providing support. Neither of them were happy with that deal, but it was the best compromise that they come up with.

Chuck and Carina rode the last leg into Keller's compound strapped to the bottom of the SUV Casey was driving, and once he'd gone inside, they quietly unclipped themselves from the bottom of the SUV and went out either side of the machine.

With Carina's competitive streak, she might have complained about how Chuck took out over three quarters of Keller's twenty four man team faster than she'd managed to deal with the last four or five if it weren't for two things.

First, she'd never seen him in full combat mode before, and it was quite frankly terrifying to watch, as Mowgli, he was even more of a killing machine than Sarah was on an Ice Queen rampage. And second, he was still angry at her for not stopping Sarah from going after Shaw without him.

She knew that she'd been wrong to go along with Sarah's plan without question, but she just didn't know how she was going to make things right with him, and bringing that up now while he appeared to be looking for something else to kill wasn't an option she was really interested in.

* * *

Inside, this was the second time that a discussion with John Casey hadn't gone the way he'd wanted. Keller had been waiting on word from his men that they had the fiancé and the daughter, so he could make John Casey an offer he couldn't refuse, join us or we'll take turns with your daughter and fiancé until they're finished, but the call hadn't come yet for some reason, so he was trying to keep Casey talking, and the guy wasn't much of a conversationalist.

Eventually, Casey snorted and said "Stop looking at your phone Keller, your men will be dead, or captured by now."

Keller froze, but Casey went on. "I know what you are Keller, and the people I work for got Kathleen and Alexandra out last night."

When Keller went to say something, Casey shook his head "No, the two women that your men saw were two of the agents that we put in the house to wait for your men."

Keller ran for the door and threw it open, only to see all of his men down, and a man and a woman standing there, looking at him. Casey spoke up from behind him. "Now that's my boss, he wants a word with you."

* * *

Carina was pulled from her musing by Chuck's voice "Stop worrying."

"What?"

"I said stop worrying, I can hear your heart pounding from here. I'm not going to attack you, I had good reasons to kill these scum." He started pointing to the bodies "Rapist", "Rape and torture", "Tortured and killed a young family, including a toddler", "Raped and murdered a twelve year old girl", "Rapist", "Torture and murder", "Rape and torture" He went through all the two dozen bodies laying there, and every one of them was utter scum, the world was a much better place without them.

Carina was quiet for a while when he finished and then she turned to him. "Chuck, I had no idea that Sarah was out of control, because I'd never seen her out of control before, she'd always had everything planned out to the nth degree, so that there were no surprises, except maybe the ones I created when I went off plan."

She paused while she tried to work out how to word this. "When she just grabbed me at the office, I really did think it was part of some plan that you two had come up with, I was expecting to see you and the others turn up, having come in some other entrance. I started to wonder when she charged into the building, because it wasn't as careful as she usually was, but like I said, I thought that you were in there as well."

"I got worried when we were attacked and split up, but when you did turn up, I thought you'd just been detained, fighting your way in, though after seeing this (waving her hand around the bodies on the ground), I realise that that wasn't likely. Chuck, you have to believe me, I thought that Sarah was under control and she was working to a plan like she always did."

"I just thought that I was missing what it was, it wouldn't be the first time I couldn't see everything that one of you guys put together, you cover angles that the rest of us don't consider until it smacks us in the face. Yeah, I could see that she was distracted about something, but she's had a lot hit her lately to remind her of the past that we'd rather forget, what happened with Forrest, Evelyn Shaw, even that crap with your parents, I figured that she was mulling over all of that and that was what she'd been upset about."

Chuck reached out his arm to hug her "It's OK Red, yeah, I was angry that she was put in danger like that and you were part of it, but I'm getting over it. I was just scared when I saw how easily I could have lost her. Believe me, I know how hard it is to understand what's going on in her head, you may have an advantage over me, being her sister, but my wife has depths that are impossible to fathom."

At that point, another voice came over their earpieces "To quote my husband 'Ah, right here guys' I'm glad that you two have sorted things out between you, but as Ellie said, I do have a reason to be a bit off at the moment, remember Chuck, carrying your babies?"

Chuck flinched. "Sorry Honey, you know I love you. I could never forget about you, but I must admit that I'd forgotten that you were on the link for the moment. Like I said, I was just terrified of losing you, and for what it's worth, I hear that the old line 'mystery, thy name is woman' has officially been changed to 'mystery, thy name is Sarah' in your honour."

"Keep it up and you'll be sleeping in the workroom again! I love you."

"Love you more, gotta go, there's movement inside."

* * *

Chuck faced the cottage just before the front door was wrenched open, and he looked a very worried looking Keller in the eye as Casey said something behind him.

Keller looked into the eyes of the tall man outside, and knew that he was in trouble when the man headed towards the cottage.

Chuck nodded to Casey and Casey grabbed Keller by the shoulder, dragging him back into the cottage. As they went inside, Chuck asked Carina to find some rope or something as Casey swept everything off the table. She found some cord, but as Casey was about to hoist Keller up onto the table, she called out.

"Wait, Chuck, can you show me how to do the eunuch strike?"

"The what?"

"What you did to that bastard who was talking shit about Sarah."

Just then, they heard Sarah's voice over the radio "Hold on, wait until I get there, I want to see this too, there are a lot of bastards out there who would need their libido permanently turned off!"

Chuck responded, "OK, we'll wait, just take your time and be safe, love you."

After hearing "love you too" there was nothing so they presumed she was driving.

Chuck turned to the others and said "Get his clothes off", then thought and added "Casey, you don't need to watch this if you don't want to."

Casey stopped what he was doing to look at him "Are you kidding? This pig was planning for him and his men to rape my little girl." He added into Keller's ear "Yeah, I saw what was in your eyes when you said that you bastard, no matter what I did you were determined to have your piece of my daughter." Looking back at Chuck he finished, "I want to see how to do this too, like Sarah said, there are a lot of bastards out there who need to be turned off permanently!"

By the time that Casey and Carina had stripped Keller down to his boxers, Sarah had arrived, walking up to kiss Chuck. Before Chuck did the demonstration, Carina grabbed Keller though his boxers and manipulated him enough to ensure that there was a reaction, then Casey held him by the shoulder and pushed him up against the table so that Chuck could clinically describe the location of the nerves in the S2 to S4 region of the spine, and the angle and force needed for the strikes.

When all three of them indicated that they'd activated the Movement Matching Modules in their Intersects, Chuck made a furry of strikes at the area he'd shown them. Theoretically, one strike could be enough, but a number of strikes was more of a guarantee that the nerves would be damaged beyond repair.

Once he'd done that, Carina grabbed Keller again, but no matter what she did now, there was no reaction.

Keller was shouting "What did you do to me?" and Casey smirked at him "Weren't you listening idiot? He turned you off, for good!"

With that, Chuck nodded to Casey again and Casey hoisted him onto the table, holding him there while the girls tied his hands and feet to the table legs.

Casey and Sarah made one last try to get Chuck to let them do this, but he shook his head, with what he'd loaded from the Fulcrum Intersect, he had pretty much everything known about torture techniques in his head. Keller was one of the most senior members of the Ring's American operation, he'd been one of the original core group recruited to build the North American part of the organisation after his dishonourable discharge back in the '90s.

They needed what was in his head to make an impact against the Ring, and Chuck had to put aside his distaste for this to make sure that Keller wasn't allowed to die before he gave up everything that he knew.

While Chuck started, Casey and Carina went out to haul the bodies of the men outside into the shed, so that the animals wouldn't get to them before the cleaner crews were brought in. They went over the bodies and removed all weapons, devices, identification, anything that they had on them that may be of use, before they threw the bodies in the shed, tossing everything they took off them into the back of Casey's SUV. When they were done, they went back inside.

After about two and a half hours, Chuck stepped back and looked at the others. Keller was giving up what he knew, that wasn't the problem, the problem was that after two and a half hours, they'd barely scratched the surface, the bastard was a gold mine.

When he looked at them, Chuck said, "We're going to have to take him back, this will take days, maybe even weeks."

Casey nodded grimly, and stepping up to Keller, stuck a tranq dart into his carotid artery. They untied him from the table, secured his hands and feet and put him in the back of the van, then all four of them went through everything in the cottage to make sure that they didn't leave anything of use behind.

* * *

Carina decided to ride back with Casey while Sarah and Chuck took the Keller back in the van.

When they heard the conversation that Carina started over the radios that were still turned on, Sarah and Chuck grinned at each other. "So, you know Mei likes you, right?"

"She's a hell of a woman, a great agent."

"Don't you fucking dare Johnny, she attacks you to make you look at her as a woman, and then she holds your hand to help you get through finding out that you have a daughter who's a grown woman, and that she's being threatened by an animal like Keller. She deserves better than that from you, you know as well as I do that she means as much to you as you do to her, don't fuck this up!"

"Yeah, I do, I just don't want to screw it up, and with the whole Alexandra issue now, it's complicated."

There was a brief silence and then Carina added "Your mother would love her, she'll think you've finally come to your senses after meeting me."

Casey snorted "Mother was a little shell shocked at meeting you."

Sarah and Chuck looked at each other, shocked, they knew that those two had history, but taking her to meet his mother, just how serious were they?

"Yeah, considering that everyone thought she was dying, hitting her with a shock like that just so that she wouldn't worry about leaving you alone maybe wasn't the best idea Johnny?"

"I didn't want to disappoint her and anyway it worked out, she picked up after that. So, how are you and Leslie handling the long distance relationship thing?"

That brought on another shocked exchange of looks in the van.

"It's not too bad, we talk every night, and we've both lived without sex before, him a lot more than me of course, seeing as I was the only one he's been with. Anyway, as soon as they wind up that data project that Chuck's got them on and they build the new facility for the Novatech labs over here, they'll all be moving over, and we can come out then."

"It was nice of you to leave Rick alone for Ellie, do you think Chuck's spotted that yet?"

If this kept up, Chuck and Sarah were going to get whiplash, the way they kept whipping their heads around to look at each other.

"Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not a slut Casey!"

"I know that! Sorry, I guess I just meant that you normally seem to think you have to keep up the act and play up to guys for appearances sake, but you didn't with Rick."

"Sorry, it's just a sensitive subject, you know? And as far as Chuck goes, he hardly has time to scratch with the way he's covering what would be four full-time jobs for anyone else, between running Special Projects, the Intersect team, Operations Command and Piranha, and with Sarah and the pregnancy and the girls on top of it, I think the only time he gets to talk to Ellie nowadays is on work matters, so I don't think he has a clue. I just hope he's happy for her, Rick's a good guy."

By the time they pulled into Quixote House, Chuck and Sarah were rather shell shocked, and Sarah pulled Carina aside while the guys were carrying Keller to the elevator to quietly tell her "You need to turn your mic off." Carina quickly looked down, then back up at Sarah with wide eyes, and Sarah nodded tiredly.

* * *

They settled Keller into a holding cell away from Kathleen and Alexandra, and then Chuck went to try give an explanation to the two women that they'd hopefully swallow so that they could get them home without too much drama.

Unfortunately there was no chance of a drama free option with Kathleen, she was going to town on Chuck, demanding to know who Chuck and his people were, who these terrorists were, and just who had enough of a connection to them that they could have been used as leverage to make this person do something.

As there was no way that she was going to let this go, Casey stepped up and answered the last question. "That would be me."

Kathleen turned her ire on him then, asking "Who the hell are you….Alex?"

Their daughter turned around at that, saying "What Mom?", only to see her mother staring up at the big man in front of her as if she'd seen a ghost.

Kathleen started speaking again, barely containing her anger. "I don't understand, we had your funeral, I was given your flag… but you didn't die, you just left? You left me for what?"

"Mom, who is this?"

Kathleen looked at her. "Alex, meet your father, Alex Coburn."

"But you told me he was dead?"

"Yes, because that was what I was told, but we were both lied to!"

Casey was just standing there and taking it without making any effort to defend himself, so Chuck stepped in.

"Ms McHugh."

Kathleen turned to pin this interloper with her glare, but for some reason this man seemed to be like Teflon, it just slid right off him. "Who ARE you, you haven't explained that either!"

Casey spoke up. "This is Admiral Carmichael, he's my boss."

Banking in the fact that as a civilian she'd have no idea that he shouldn't have that rank at anything close to his age, Chuck ran with it. "Ms McHugh, Colonel Casey was forced to go along with faking his death and starting over with a new identity in January 1989, when he left you."

"If he'd known about his daughter (waving at Alex), I'm sure that he would have fought it much harder, but as it was, he was offered a chance to do his duty and serve his country in a way he never had before, and as anyone who ever knew him at all would know, that was an offer that he couldn't refuse."

"He wasn't happy about leaving you, but he gave in when he was convinced that after a short period of grief you'd move on and have a happy life, while he served his country as only he could."

Kathleen turned her baleful glare back on Casey. "Why isn't he telling me this?"

Chuck snorted "I don't know what he was like when you knew him, but in the fifteen years that I've known him, he hasn't liked talking about anything personal, and especially talking about his feelings. He'd rather go into battle against impossible odds than sit down and talk about what he'd normally refer to as 'lady feelings', this (waving at Casey) is the man I know."

Casey shot him a look of gratitude at that, and Kathleen started to back down as she realised that he was right, what he'd described was exactly the man that her fiancé had been. Alex was a good man, a caring man, but he was driven by duty, and any attempt to have one of those discussions with him would generally result in him rushing off to do something crazy and heroic.

As she allowed what this Admiral Carmichael had said to sink in, she also realised that he was right about the fact that if Alex had known about the baby, he would have stayed, he would have fought tooth and nail to be there for her and look after her. She turned and reached her hand out to her daughter.

When Alex came to her, she grasped her hand and pulled her in to face her father. "Alex, I'd like you meet your rather, Colonel…?"

Casey realised that they hadn't said his name as yet. "John, John Casey"

Alex looked at him with narrowed eyes and said "Sorry, but how do I, we, know you are who you say you are? My mother seems to accept your reasons for leaving us, but you haven't shown me any reason to believe you yet."

Chuck snorted at that, and when they all looked at him, said. "Yep, that's your daughter alright Casey, she's just a smaller, prettier version of you." That made Casey's, and even Kathleen's, mouths twist into wry grins as they realised that he'd hit the nail on the head with that crack, and Casey reached into his pocket to pull out his NSA credentials and hand them to his daughter. Even though the question hadn't been directed at him, Chuck did the same.

Alex compared them to their credentials very carefully and then handed them back before looking at her father again.

"So, do you expect me to accept you into my life as my father now?"

Casey shook his head. "No, I haven't done anything to deserve that, if I'd known about you I never would have left, but I did leave, and you've grown into an admirable young woman without anything from me. I have no right to force myself into your life now, I just ask that if you need me for anything, any time, any where, you'll call me (he handed her a card), I don't want to let you down any more Alexandra."

She looked up at him, as she considered this mountain of a man who was over a foot taller than her and said "Alex, it's Alex Dad."

They could see him choking back tears as he said "Alex."

Chuck could see this degenerating into a long session and he, for one, wasn't up to that, so he said. "Casey, can you get the ladies home?"

Alex turned to look at him "What about those terrorists that you locked us up in here to protect us against?"

"They're dead, except for a couple who were taken for questioning, some of them were killed when they tried to come and get you at your house, and the rest were killed when we went to the head of the group with your father to supposedly deliver what he was being blackmailed to deliver."

She looked between them "And just what was he being blackmailed to deliver?"

"He had to steal something from a secure facility for them."

"What was he supposed to steal?"

Chuck shook his head. "That's classified I'm afraid Ms McHugh, and you don't have the clearance to know about it."

She nodded at that and looked back at her father "Will you be around so that we can have a chance to get to know each other?"

Casey nodded. "Yeah, we're based here now, and rarely have to go away for more than a week or two at a time, so if you want to talk, just call me."

She nodded again at that, and Chuck shook hands with the women before they left.

After they'd left, Sarah and Carina came out the conference room where they'd been watching, and after hugging Sarah, Chuck turned to Carina and said. "So, tell me about everything going on around here that I've been missing."

Carina turned to bolt, until she was fixed to the spot by the steel in Sarah's voice as she said "Red!"


	25. Ring of Fire

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this wouldn't happen in the normal world.**

* * *

When she realised that there was no way she was going to get out of this, Carina said. "OK, let's go up to your place, because I'm going to need alcohol for this, lots of alcohol."

Chuck and Sarah looked at each other, wondering whether they really wanted to know this but they agreed with one of the looks that drove the others around the bend (because they still couldn't understand how they communicated so much with just a look), and Sarah turned back to her, saying "OK, come on."

Up in the penthouse, they settled down in the living room, Carina with a line of bottles in front of her and Chuck and Sarah sharing a pitcher of a non-alcoholic fruity drink that Chuck had made up (Sarah told him that there was nothing stopping him from drinking, but he didn't want her to be not drinking alone). Carina downed her first drink and refilled her glass before looking at them and asking "So, what do you want to hear?"

Sarah settled back into Chuck's arms and said "Why don't you start with how it was that Casey took you home to meet his dying mother?" Carina nodded and, downing half of her second drink, started.

"It was about four years ago, just after Prague, we'd gotten back together so I could make it up to him for leaving him handcuffed to the bed in his boxers and sending the picture to everyone. He'd made a dick move with something he'd said to me, but I went totally overboard with my reaction to that, so I was feeling a little guilty."

Sarah cut in at that point. "Why didn't I hear anything about this other than getting that picture?"

"You were stuck with that bastard Larkin and were having a hell of a time with him, so we hardly had a chance to talk at the time, that may have been why I went off the deep end at Johnny. Anyway, while we were together, Johnny got a call to say that his mother was in hospital and they didn't expect her to last the month out." She stopped to down another drink and top off her glass.

"Johnny started talking about how she'd always worried that he'd be alone with no-one to look out for him, and how he hated her going thinking that she'd left him all alone, because she was the only family he had. It was probably the amount of alcohol we'd drunk, but somehow we came up with the idea that he'd take me home to meet her so he could tell her that he had someone now, and she wasn't leaving him alone."

"Anyway, so we fly home to this little town in the mid-west and I get myself a whole new girl next door wardrobe before we go to see her, and she sees straight through the act as soon as I walk in the door. The woman was on her death bed and we just about gave her a heart attack by trying to convince her that her only son was shacked up with a Jezebel."

"There was an upside to the story, though, because seeing him with me gave her the resolve to live, and get him back on the straight and narrow, so she was back on her feet and out of hospital within two weeks. Since then they've been talking quite often and she's still holding up well for her Johnny Boy." The others gave her a weird look at that and she grinned.

"Why do you think I call him Johnny? He was the third generation of Alex Coburn, and his father had hated being called Junior so much that there was no way he was going to do that to his son, so they called him by his middle name, John, or Johnny Boy to be more precise."

Sarah nodded at that "Well, that's one mystery cleared up, now, how did you and Leslie get together, I thought Mei would have protected him from your predatory ways?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence sis! We became friends before we did anything else! Actually, Chuck's probably a lot of the reason that that happened."

That made Chuck sit up "What? What did I do?"

"You're you, and you make people want to be better. Leslie was a mess after what the CIA did to him for sixteen years, and he didn't know anything about the world outside of a bunker, so after I got past his fear of me coming after him that someone had put in his head (glaring at Sarah), we started taking him out to see the world."

"Mei came with us sometimes, but it wasn't really her scene, so quite often it was just Leslie and me, and we had a great time. He's a great guy, smart, funny, caring," (She looked at Sarah "Remind you of anyone sis?")

"So he started asking me why I went out to pick up guys in clubs, and I ended up telling him a bit of why I can't sleep alone, which led to him making the same offer that you did, sharing his bed to keep the demons away." (She looked at Sarah again. "And yes, I kept to the must wear pyjamas rule with him when he did that for me.")

"We were just sleeping at first, and he was doing a great job of keeping the demons at bay, he still is actually, we talk every night before I go to sleep and I hardly ever get the nightmares, but we started getting more affectionate, and after we'd accepted the fact that we cared about each other, things went from there."

"So who knows about you guys?"

"Johnny, of course, I talked to him about whether I was doing the right thing when we were starting and he was really supportive, Mei, and Zondra, because she's there when he calls at night. Chuck's parents, or his mother at least, know something's going on, but I'm pretty sure that they think it's just sex."

It was the first full Sarah smile that either of them had seen from her lately when she said "I'm really happy for you, both of you!" That got a shy smile from Carina as she said "Thanks sis."

Chuck spoke up next. "So how did I miss the fact that my sister is having a romance going on right under my nose?"

Carina looked at him "You heard me telling Johnny, you're working flat out all the time trying to keep Operations Command, the Special Projects team, the Intersect team, and Piranha running smoothly, and make time for the girls and Sarah. I know from Sarah's bitching about it that as soon as she goes to sleep, you get up and go back to work in the boudoir, hell, you even missed the fact that your wife was pregnant for three months! How is it a surprise that you didn't see what's going on with Ellie when you hardly have a chance to talk to her nowadays?"

Chuck slumped at that and Carina jumped in. "I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong Chuckie, it's just that you've been burning the candle at both ends and working yourself to death, so it's hardly surprising that you're not seeing what's going on around you."

Chuck nodded tiredly and asked "Are they happy together?"

Carina nodded. "They seem to be, Rick is in Ellie's room most nights and they're together when we go out clubbing, he's a good guy Chuck, Ellie's laughing and enjoying herself and he's looking out for her."

Chuck nodded again, a little more positively this time, and turned to Sarah. "I did see that you were changing, actually, but I thought that you were putting on a little weight because you weren't getting a chance to exercise, and I didn't want to upset you so I didn't say anything."

That got a laugh and a kiss from Sarah before she added. "Well, I couldn't have complained if you hadn't, because I was so stressed out over the Shaws, Forrest, your parents and everything else that I was just putting everything down to being my reaction to those things." Turning back to Carina, she asked. "So, aside from this budding romance between Casey and Mei, what else are we missing?"

Carina looked away as she filled her glass, downed it and immediately refilled it. "RED?"

"Well, Anna and Josie are sorta seeing each other, too, and Josie's worried because she doesn't know how her mother will handle finding out that she's bi."

That made Chuck and Sarah look at each other, Josie had a point, Roan wouldn't turn a hair at anything people do for fun, but Aunt D was more straight laced, as far as they knew, the wildest thing she'd ever done was getting herself knocked up by Roan in the late eighties and going against her family's wishes to have the baby out of wedlock. Even there, she'd given Josie up to a married cousin to raise as her own until Josie found out that she was adopted when she was in her mid teens, so yes, Aunt D was likely to be the problem there.

Chuck shook his head as he picked up his glass to drink and jokingly asked. "So, Vicky or Zondra aren't with Jeff or Vincent?"

When Carina's response was "No, they're just friends with benefits most of the time." He sprayed what he was drinking across the coffee table. "WHAT?"

"What do you mean, what? A girl has needs you know, and they're much better off with a nice guy that they like than some random douche that she picks up in some club. From what the girls tell me, Jeff's actually very good in bed, he really knows how to show a girl a good time. And he likes to cuddle, do you know how hard it is to find a guy who's happy to just cuddle instead of getting his rocks off? They say that Vincent's quieter, but he's caring and considerate, he sounds like Johnny actually, which isn't a bad thing, I can tell you."

Chuck and Sarah looked at each other, and Chuck was regretting asking now.

"Why are you acting as if it's so strange that we've all been hooking up within the group? We're all living and working together pretty much twenty four seven because you've been dragging us along with you as you rush around saving the world. And in case you didn't notice it Chuckles, you tend to attract interesting people to you. So when we're given a choice between the interesting and exceptional people that you've surrounded yourself with, and we're comfortable with, and random strangers that we pick up in clubs, it's not that surprising that we go with the devil we know, is it?"

"OK, I've filled you in on the rest of the crew, now it's your turn, who was Ellie talking about when she went off at Bry about telling the one he really cares about how he feels?"

Chuck asked "What do you mean?"

"When your father was being a douche after you saved him, Johnny told me that Ellie let Bry off the hook on not trying to make your parents see what you were going through because of your father's petty jealousies, but she did have a go at him about forgetting about the bitch that took his daughter and left him and telling the one he really cared about what be felt, who is she?"

Sarah looked at Chuck in confusion and Chuck grimaced. Sarah said "You know, don't you?"

Chuck nodded at that. "Yeah, she was talking about your mom. Apparently she was falling apart after your father took you away, and Uncle Bry would call and see her whenever he could to make sure she was OK, because he cared so much about her and it killed him to see her hurting that way. Aunt D told us that he'd always cared for her, but he wasn't going to make a move on her because she was a married woman up until a year or two after your father took you and left."

"The problem was, he was sent back to the States for convalescent leave around that time and he got Kim's mother pregnant, and he married her to do the right thing, so by the time your Mom stopped being married, he was. Lenie, Kim's mom, got tired of waiting for him to come back from his missions overseas and divorced him when Kim was about eleven or twelve, getting re-married straight away to some sleazy business tycoon, but Bry's sense of duty still made him put aside what he wanted because he thought that that was what he should do for Kim's sake. From what Aunt D told us, though, he's never stopped caring for your mom or seeing her whenever he could to make sure she was OK. So yeah, it was your mom that Ellie was telling him to tell the truth about his feelings to."

"Does Mom know about this?"

"From what Aunt D told us, the attraction was never one sided, but she had the same hang-ups about the sanctity of marriage that he did, and she respected his choice to stay single for Kim."

That made Sarah run through the mental footage of the two of them together in her head, and she registered what she'd been filtering out before, all the looks, smiles, touches, hugs that they shared whenever they were together. She looked at him when she'd finished and nodded. "Yeah, they're right, Mom and Bry are into each other, I think I need to talk some sense into my mother."

Chuck raised an eyebrow at that, so she qualified her statement. "He's a wonderful man, and they both deserve their fair share of happiness, I may not be in a position to slap sense into Bry, but I can try with Mom."

At that Carina stood up, staggering a little, and slurred out "OK, my work is done, and I think it's time for me to go to bed." Sarah smiled indulgently at her, but when she took in the empty litre bottle of hundred proof vodka and almost empty tequila bottle in front of her she looked at Chuck. He nodded with a smile and said "I'll make sure she gets to bed OK."

With that he put his arm around Carina and led her to the elevator after she'd given Sarah a sloppy kiss goodnight. As he was undressing her in her room, Carina asked him if she was being selfish, wanting the fairytale for herself? He answered "Of course not.", and then after he'd gotten her clothes off and slid her into bed, he sat on the side of the bed and brushed her hair out of her face.

"You two have had a bad deal from life up to now, far worse than you deserve, so if you can find happiness together, it's nothing less than either of you deserve." He leaned over to kiss her goodnight, said "Night, Red." and got up to leave. When he turned to the door, Zondra was leaning against the door frame, smiling at him. He quietly shut the door behind him and Zondra said "You know, we didn't do too bad for a brother-in-law." Chuck smiled and gave her a hug at that, and Zondra nodded to the door. "I take it from that that you know about her and Leslie now?"

Chuck gave a wry grin, saying "Yeah, she forgot to turn off her mic when she was driving back with Casey, so we found out lots of things that have been going on that we didn't know about. She was just upstairs filling us in on the situation, but given that she also went through about two litres of high proof liquor, she's likely to be feeling sorry for herself in the morning." That got a low laugh and agreement out of Zondra, and with another hug and a kiss goodnight Chuck went back to the penthouse.

* * *

Chuck had been continuing on with his task of mining the CIA's backup archives for anything that Graham may have left, and also for anything relating to Graham's known associates, like the Acting DCI. He'd been filling in a lot of holes, but there wasn't really enough to formally indict Graham's puppet yet, and that work was slowed down by the amount of time Chuck was having to spend working on getting all of the intel out of Keller at the moment.

Chuck was putting Keller through at least one or two interrogation sessions a day, but after two weeks the end still wasn't anywhere near in sight, as he'd determined out at the cottage that night, Keller was a gold mine of intel on the Ring and other nefarious activities. There was one thing that worried Chuck, though, he kept referring to Graham in the present tense, even when Chuck had clarified that he was, in fact, referring to Langston Graham.

The references to Graham being alive made Chuck go back through all the footage of the morning when Graham brought ten CIA agents into the Intersect facility to load the Intersect, and from what he could see on the security cam footage, it had certainly looked like Langston Graham who had gone into that room, just before they were all fried.

But now there were doubts, because the powers that be had decided that there was no point in going to the extraordinary lengths that it would have taken to extract DNA evidence from the charred corpses that were left in that room when they had video evidence of who had gone into the room before everything was fried to a crisp. So now they had to decide what to believe, a man talking under torture, or the evidence that everyone else had accepted at the time?

It eventually took nearly a month to get everything that they thought that they were going to get out of Keller, and then they let Casey do what he'd been wanting to do since he heard about Keller's plans for Alex, process him appropriately.

As Chuck had been extracting what Keller knew, the others had been following up on the leads he supplied. One advantage that they had was that the other side obviously presumed that Keller had been killed along with all his men (because none of them had ever turned up in any NSA black sites, and there was no hope of identifying any bodies that the cleaners processed), and they hadn't bothered clearing out the facilities and groups that Keller knew about. That meant that the team had a lot of live leads to follow up, and they were making quite a bit of headway.

* * *

After Chuck had finished with Keller, the DNI requested Director Hanson to come in for an off the books meeting that no-one else in the CIA was to know about. Given that Hanson had his own concerns about the way that the CIA was being run, it didn't take much for him to agree.

When Hanson arrived at the location that he'd been directed to and was escorted into the room, though, he found three people waiting for him, the Director of National Intelligence, General Diane Beckman and Special Agent Carmichael. The DNI stood up and walked over to greet him with a handshake. "Good to see you Director Hanson, I believe you know General Beckman and Admiral Carmichael?"

The conversation stopped there as Hanson's head swivelled between the DNI and Carmichael "ADMIRAL Carmichael?" The DNI faltered as he realised that he'd put his foot in it, he turned to Chuck and said "Sorry Chuck, I sometimes forget that people don't know who you are, especially given that Director Hanson is here as your nomination."

Turning back to Hanson, "Why don't you have a seat Director Hanson and we'll fill you in on our mystery man."

Taking a seat himself, the DNI brought up an image on screen of Chuck in full dress uniform being inducted into his role as Commander, Operations Command. "The man you know as Special Agent Carmichael, and Mowgli, is also Rear Admiral Charles Carmichael, Commander of Operations Command, which is nominally under Special Operations Command and Cyber Command, and has formal liaisons with the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and the Joint Chiefs." Hanson stopped him moving the picture on to ask about the medals, the DNI just said "Yes, they're all real, he won the combat medals as Mowgli, but he doesn't like talking about them."

He went on "Admiral Carmichael is, as you know, the Special Agent in Charge of the NSA's Intersect team, but he's also the Special Agent in Charge of the DIA's Special Project team, and the Station Chief of the NSA/DIA Glendale Station, which gives him the authority and influence to do more than most people attached to the government realise."

"Which brings us to why you're here, as a result of the mission that Agent Carmichael's team had to do with Daniel Shaw, he began an operation to retrieve the intel relating to DCI Graham from places that hadn't been cleaned out. As a result of that operation, we now have better intelligence on what Graham was actually up to, and also who was working with him."

With that the DNI brought up what Chuck had extracted about the Acting DCI, Director Hanson didn't get to his position by being naive or stupid, and he could easily understand what he was seeing. The Acting DCI was in bed with the Ring. He brought his attention back to the DNI, who had taken in the fact that he'd recognised what he was seeing.

"Yes, the Acting DCI has to go, we don't have the evidence together yet to move on him, but when we do, we'll need a replacement who will uphold the ideals as that the office is supposed to. That's why you're here Director Hanson, Admiral Carmichael has proposed you as that replacement, and after having investigated your background, the President and I have decided to support his nomination, if you're interested in the position?"

Hanson was looking from the DNI, to Carmichael, and back. 'CARMICHAEL had nominated him, and that was the reason he was being offered the position of the DCI by the DNI and the President? Just how much power did this guy have? According to the records that he'd been able to locate Carmichael was only thirty five, though he didn't look anything like that, how could a guy in this mid thirties have the ear of the most powerful people in the country?'

He was brought out of his musing by the DNI "Director Hanson? Would you accept the position of Director of Central Intelligence if we offered it to you once it's vacant?"

"Sorry sir, yes, it would be an honour to serve as the DCI if you see fit to offer the position to me."

The DNI nodded, handing the gavel, so to speak, over to the General to fill Hanson in on recent events. When she brought up the recent trace cell mission, Hanson interrupted to ask Chuck just what he'd done to that guy. Chuck waved it off as a localised nerve strike that had no effect on anything other than arousal and erectile function, saying that he knew that he shouldn't have done it, but he'd been angry about the comments being made about what he'd like to do to his wife. "Wife?" Aunt D stepped in, still not happy about the incident. "Yes, Agent Walker is Agent Carmichael's wife."

Hanson laughed at that, but when he saw the looks he explained. "I could see that you two are together, but I never dreamed that you were actually married." He took another look at the expressions in the room and added "Don't get me wrong, I think it's great what you did, I've got two teenage daughters that I worry about all the time, if more of those animals were turned off, the world would be a better place!"

The DNI chuckled and brought up the group photo from Chuck's wedding, pointing out the girls and saying "These are Admiral Carmichael's daughters" "This is his sister" (pointing to Ellie), "and these are Colonel Carmichael's sisters", pointing to Carina, Zondra and Molly.

When Hanson looked confused and asked "Colonel Carmichael?" the DNI grimaced. "Sorry, I've done it again", he brought up the image of Sarah's induction as the Deputy Commander. "Agent Walker is also United States Air Force Colonel Sarah Carmichael, Deputy Commander of Operations Command, and she manages the Operations group in Operations Command"

He stopped to think for a moment and then brought up the group photo of the OC's senior officers, pointing each out as he talked. "While we're getting this out of the way, The Admiral's sister is Navy Captain Eleanor Charlemagne, managing the Information Dominance group in Operations Command. Agent Casey is a Marine Colonel directing operations, Agent Miller and Agent Rizzo are Navy Commanders directing operations, Agent Mills is an Army Colonel directing operations, and Colonel Carmichael's mother is a Navy Commander under Captain Charlemagne, it's sort of a family affair in the team."

Hanson realised something else about this, and the DNI nodded "Yes, Director Hanson, you're in too deep to back out now."

With that, they went back to filling Hanson in on the recent activities and the implications, informing him that the Trace Cell had just been a cover for blackmailing someone into stealing something for the Ring, and that the request for the Intersect team to do it had come from the Acting DCI. That prompted Hanson to remember that the Acting DCI had originally instructed him to get Shaw to work with the team as well.

This led into the General bringing up the fact that the DCI had requested the team for another mission in D.C. the following week, and in light of what had been happening, that didn't bode well. They wound up the meeting with Director Hanson getting direct contact details for all of them, and him giving the undertaking to try and quietly find out something about this upcoming mission within the CIA.

* * *

The next week, even though none of them had managed to track down any intel on what was being planned, they found out exactly what it was about. The other side had apparently decided that the team was causing too much disruption to their plans, so they'd scraped together most of their heavy hitters, senators on oversight committees, a few three and four star Generals and senior agency people, enough to ensure that they made up over two thirds of the "committee", under the direction of a four star General, General Merriweather, to preside over a kangaroo court to put the entire team behind bars.

The Ring, or whoever it was was running with this, had played their cards well, they arranged for Chuck, Casey and Carina (they couldn't force Sarah to go on a mission, with her pregnancy at the advanced stages as she was, but they discounted her as a threat because of that) to come to a given room for the briefing meeting, but when they entered, it was effectively a courtroom, and they were held at gunpoint as they were disarmed and relieved of their phones.

At the same time, an military escort burst into Aunt D's office and took her straight from there to the "court room" without any chance of her contacting anyone. This was apparently all set up as an attempt at an end run around the DNI, and therefore the President, to disappear the team (including the General), before anyone could do anything about them.

What the Ring didn't realise, of course, was that her assistant was onto the DNI's private line as soon as they were out of the office, or that Bry, Zondra, Mei, Vincent, Rick, Vicky and Mary were in town with a sixteen man platoon of the most able bodied of the Operations Command staff to form a strike team to back them up, and Sarah, Ellie, Emma, Jeff, Anna, Leslie and Stephen were there to follow the trails and determine how to get them out. As soon as the General's assistant called the DNI, he notified the others and they leapt into action to try and find them.

Inside the "court room", the proceedings were going as expected for a kangaroo court, they were given no opportunities to present any evidence to refute any of the charges against them. The Ring also trotted out Clyde Decker as the special agent who'd supposedly been investigating the group for years now to unsettle them.

Decker kept hanging around their table making quiet threats about what he was going to do to Sarah and their families in an attempt to get a reaction out of Chuck and Casey, but he wasn't making them worried and unsettled, he was giving them something to focus their anger on, big mistake!

They brought up the damage that Chuck did to Johnson, the one who'd been trying to blackmail Sarah into being a sex slave for him and the others, as well as what he'd done to the CIO and the threats he'd made to the CEO before he'd turned up dead, along with what Sarah did to the other two that had been in on it.

The issue of what Chuck did to the one who was describing how he wanted to do Sarah after the Trace Cell mission came up as "evidence" of how unstable Chuck was, citing his "unprovoked" attack of the CIA official, as was Carina's outburst in that meeting.

They also brought up what Sarah did to Shaw when she killed him, and showed medical reports and doctored footage which gave the impression that Chuck, Sarah and Casey had been instrumental in Larkin's death, after they'd attacked him.

The fabricated or doctored evidence was laying it on pretty thick that all four of them were involved in unjustified deaths and attacks in many instances, and they were claiming that the General had been fabricating evidence to cover up their "killing sprees" and activities to keep her team viable.

The "straight" members of the committee who made up the court (who had been told was merely an informal hearing) kept asking to see the other evidence that the General and the team were talking about, but were being overruled every time, and they weren't allowed to stand down and leave because the proceedings had already started.

The outcome of the "hearing" was a foregone conclusion, pretty much from the start, so at the end any dissenters on the committee were overruled, and they were all sent away to be locked up pending sentencing. The problem at that point was that the General was taken somewhere separate from the others, as she was deemed to be the one who needed to be hidden from the DNI and the authorities, to the Ring the others were considered to be little more than her foot soldiers.

Her separation from the others unfortunately meant that when Jeff, Anna and co engineered a brief power outage as Chuck, Casey and Carina were being escorted to their cells, Aunt D was still trapped elsewhere. As soon as the lights went out, Chuck, Casey and Carina had no trouble overpowering their guards and took off. They followed the flashing lights directing them to their exit point, ducking into rooms that they opened or indicated at the times when the search parties were getting close to them.

When they got out of the CIA facility, Bry, Zondra, Mei and Vincent were there waiting in an armed (and armoured) electric stealth transport that was the latest creation from Novatech. By that stage, they were all quite prepared to wage all out war on the CIA and its minions, but there was no need to, as once the three had hopped in and the transport was closed up, they just rolled away silently and invisibly, and as far as the CIA could see they'd just disappeared as soon as they left the building.

They slipped back to one of the hidden Novatech labs where the others were waiting, and once the three of them had been reunited with their significant others, Chuck took over the search for Aunt D. As good as the others were, this was the Piranha's world, and he'd identified her location and taken control of the security system so that they could communicate with her inside an hour and a half.

* * *

That was where they had their first win in this thing, because with the ego that Decker had, he hadn't been able to resist boasting about what they were going to do. What she managed to pass on to them before someone started heading for the cell again was that it appeared that she was actually the prime target for this operation, and they'd apparently just wanted to get Chuck and the team out of the way to prevent them from interfering with their objective.

Aunt D had been selected, as the senior inter agency representative of the the American intelligence communities, to chair an intelligence conference that was coming up in a couple of days in D.C. which was hosting the heads of the world's intelligence communities. That was why the Ring's representatives had needed to take her out, so that they could replace her with their own man (Decker), because they had big plans for that conference.

The ring already had their people in positions of power throughout the world's intelligence communities, the intent with this conference was to stage a coup that would wipe out any significant figures that weren't bought and paid for, by way of a fake terrorist attack at the Conference. They planned to replace the ones they killed with their minions, and as a result, get control of the world's intelligence communities. Once they controlled the intelligence communities, they could influence their governments enough to make them do what they wanted, and the truly frightening thing about their plan was that, unless someone managed to stop them here, they would succeed.

There was another nugget that was unearthed in Decker's boasting though, and Aunt D wasn't sure that he'd realised that he'd let it slip. All of the Ring Elders were actually going to be there at the conference, as they were all the heads of intelligence agencies in Europe and the Soviet Block, and they had decided to be there to witness the crowning achievement of their plan for domination over their weaker adversaries.

They kept the link up to keep an eye on Aunt D, so that they could intervene if any moves were made against her, and Chuck slipped out to fill the DNI in on what was happening and organise the forces that they would need to ward this off. Chuck already had the connections to bring in enough special forces teams to take out the fake terrorists and any other forces that the Ring could front, and he'd made the calls to organise them and ensure that they'd be here in time before he went to the DNI.

The DNI was needed to fill in the President and the people that they knew were part of the good guys, so that when it all came down, they'd have the official support needed to prevent a bloodbath when legitimate forces reacted to what was happening.

He also had to make arrangements for the arrest of the significant Ring figures who'd been outed by the Ring's kangaroo court, Keller's testimony and other items uncovered, people like the National Security Advisor, the Deputy Director of the NSA, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Acting Director of Central Intelligence, General Merriweather and the others that the Ring planted on the committee for the kangaroo court. Clyde Decker would be arrested, but that had to be after Chuck and the others took him down.

* * *

To deal with Decker and the Elders, they had to be inside the Conference, so they went looking for suitable people to take over their invites from. It didn't take too long to identify one female and one male attendee who weren't coming, but were close enough to Zondra and Chuck for them to use their identities. Chuck removed any records or indications that they weren't going, inserted travel details that would get them there in time from their official departure points, and amended the details on file so that they would have no problems with getting in, while Jeff and Anna ensured that Carina, Mei, Vincent, Rick and Vicky could get in the back way without being detected.

Casey and Bry would be coming in the front doors with the Special Ops teams as soon as they'd taken out the Ring forces who were pretending to be terrorists. It had been decided that they were the best known after Chuck with those guys, and that well known faces would make the troops more comfortable with staging a military strike inside the government facilities.

By the time the conference started, they had everything in place, and Zondra and Chuck had no trouble getting in with their assumed identities of the missing (Spanish and Russian respectively) representatives. It was easy for Zondra to distract Decker with a little cleavage as she slipped a phone into his pocket, and then she covered Chuck as he reconfigured the Audio Visual system to accept a feed from Decker's office.

Once the A/V system was reconfigured, Chuck headed to Decker's office to set it up to provide the requisite feeds, while Zondra went to make sure that the others got in OK (and to get the tactical gear and proper weapons that they'd brought in for her, once she'd changed into the gear and armour, she was a lot better prepared for the fight that they were expecting).

When Decker took the stage for his fifteen minutes of fame, Chuck smirked to himself as he called him to tell him that they were on to him and that he knew that the Ring Elders were there. He kept pushing Decker's buttons until he'd sent warnings to the Elders to make sure that they got away. Decker also sent messages to the other Ring agents to go with them to protect the Elders, that wasn't part of the plan, but they had enough people down there to deal with them.

Decker was feeling pretty pleased with himself once he'd gotten the Elders away safely, and he asked Chuck where he was? Chuck enjoyed taunting him a little, saying that he was in his office, of course, knowing that he'd come after him. When Decker got there, he entered the office cautiously, but was confident that he could handle an analyst like Carmichael, so he didn't attack him straight away, as he wanted to find out everything he knew before he killed him (as planned).

Chuck was enjoying playing Decker, feeding him all the right prompts so that he felt compelled to dispel Chuck's misconceptions about what had been achieved, and by whom (as he had to feel important). Chuck gave him just what he needed to making him keep boasting about everything that he and the Ring had done. When he'd given up all the intel needed to prove their case against him, and the Ring, beyond any shadow of a doubt, Chuck interrupted him, hitting a few keys as he asked him how the Ring was doing for technical specialists? As he turned the screen around to face Decker, he thanked him, because without his help they wouldn't have been able to convince everyone else of the truth of what was going on.

When Decker saw himself on the screen, he realised how well Chuck had played him, and just how much he'd given up about the Ring. At that he pulled his pistol and started emptying it in Chuck's direction. Chuck dived below the edge of the desk, working his way around to pop out around the corner of the desk and put a bullet into Decker's shoulder and make him drop his pistol. He quickly tranqed him and secured him, collecting his pistol and magazines before taking out the phones and shorting out the locks to make sure that he'd remain there as he ran out to help the others.

By this stage, the Elders were trying to make their escape via the rear stairs, but they found Carina, Vincent, Rick and Vicky waiting for them. When the fifteen or so Ring agents that had gone with the Elders to protect them drew their weapons and started firing, they started going down pretty quickly as the team was entrenched with assault rifles and armour.

As soon as they saw what was happening, the Elders and the rear guard turned around to head back, but they found their way blocked by Zondra and Mei, and Chuck, who'd just arrived with a pistol in each hand, so they were fighting on two fronts. All the guards were down soon after that, either dead or wounded.

While the Elders and the guards were being secured, Chuck went back to Decker's office to collect him, and they all went out the way the others had come in. They were going to extract everything they knew, but it wasn't going to be done in any official capacity, because few of the methods that they'd be using would be even remotely legal.

That wasn't something that Chuck or the others were really comfortable with, but playing by the rules when the other side had nothing but disdain for those rules was just a recipe for failure, and failure in this had far reaching consequences that were too severe to take the risk.

* * *

They couldn't leave D.C. immediately, because they had to have meetings with the President, and the foreign dignitaries that they'd saved that day. Casey and Bry had collected the information and pictures of their targets from the Ring's "terrorists", and this intel, and the plan, had been shared with their targets. The President was in communication with the other heads of state in regard to the agency heads who were already bought by the Ring, and while most were cleaning house aggressively, the reaction that he got from some was a worry, in that the heads of state were obviously part of the plot.

Chuck and the team were queried about the Elders and others who'd disappeared, but the implication that that gave was just that they'd been disposed of. The DNI was the only one questioning them who knew Chuck well enough to read his expression when he gave his response, and he knew that they would be going somewhere to be processed before they were actually disposed of.

As soon as they were released, the team headed home with their guests in WT1, the enhanced Wraith version of the T1 transport aircraft. The handling was about the same, but the plasma emitters added about 50% to the cruising speed and improved the range a little, so that it could go across the country at around Mach 1.5. On top of that, it was as undetectable as the transport that had been used to get them away from the CIA building has been.

It took them a few weeks to process the Elders, Decker and the ones they'd taken with the Elders. Casey, Carina, Zondra and Vincent also had the Fulcrum Torture database loaded now, so they shared the load of interrogating them. As they extracted intel, it was passed on to the others to follow up, and within two months of the attempted coup the Ring was all but eradicated.

As far as they knew, all that was left was the dregs who'd run when the hammer came down. One thing was certain, not one of the major players that they'd identified was still holding any positions of authority, and that had caused a major shake-up of the intelligence communities around the world, as well as the United States military and politics.

* * *

The DNI had elevated Director Hanson to acting DCI as soon as his predecessor was arrested, and once the Ring clean-up operation was wound up to the powers that be's satisfaction, the senior officers and the staff who'd come to D.C. to support them were called back to attend his official induction into the position.

Of course, there were other reasons to call them to D.C. and they also had to go through the ceremonies for a Presidential Unit Citation (Navy and Marines, but the Army and Air Force people in Operations Command didn't mind), and there were also Presidential Medals of Freedom awarded and presented to the key people in the operation (awarded with distinction for Chuck and Sarah, along with additional awards of the Defense Distinguished Service Medal and National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Intelligence Cross for Chuck).

Chuck and Sarah also had sessions with the French, German and British ambassadors, because Chuck was awarded the French Legion of Honour (Commander _)_ and the German Gold Cross of Honour for Outstanding Deeds, and was made an Honorary Military Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, and Sarah was also awarded the French Legion of Honour (Commander) and the German Silver Cross of Honour for Outstanding Deeds (as the criteria for the Gold Cross specified 'at the risk of one's life'), and was made an Honorary Military Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath. (It had been made clear to all concerned that while Chuck was the man inside, Sarah had been planning and commanding all the activities from outside.)

While others may not have agreed, those three countries had regarded their actions to be of great moment, considering that they had stopped the heads of their primary intelligence agencies being assassinated in order to replace them with the puppets of an international criminal organisation, and they wanted to show their gratitude.

The French and German ambassadors had been a little shocked when both Chuck and Sarah addressed them in perfect French and German when they were talking to them (and that Sarah was about ready to drop). The American politicians who were present were a little worried because the discussions were going too fast for them to follow, and politicians never like being out of the loop.

The politicians hadn't appreciated it when they asked what they were discussing, and Chuck told them that they were swapping recipes, but they couldn't do anything to the heroes of the hour. They appreciated it even less when the British Ambassador smiled charmingly and had his own conversation with them in fluent French, as he'd seen the reaction to the previous discussions. The actual discussions weren't about anything that concerned the government, they were around how two people of such obvious youth could have won the medals that they had (because the powers that be insisted that they attend the award ceremonies in full uniform, even though Sarah was over eight months pregnant at the time), and as usual they'd both just waved the matter off as just being in the right place at the right time (or more to the point, being in the wrong place at the wrong time).

The ambassadors had shown extreme scepticism at their responses, but then the discussions had moved onto Sarah's pregnancy and when she was due after that, and they'd extended invitations to visit their family estates with the children when they had the time. While they were certain that they hadn't been told the truth about the medals, they were enchanted with this young couple, so full of life (Sarah very much so).

After all the ceremonies were done, they piled back into WT1 and headed back to L.A. to catch up on what they'd missed doing while half of the team was tied up in D.C. playing nice with the politicians. They'd wasted a couple of days on this jaunt, but they'd ensured that the Ring was burned, which hopefully meant that they could go back to working through the issues and preparing for the babies without that hanging over their heads any more.


	26. Growing Pains

**With regard to the light hearted digs from Wilf and some not so light hearted comments from someone else about the medals, the most recent round (and more than a few of the previous ones) were largely awards that the rules say that the President and others can and do give out without really having to meet any particularly stringent criteria.**

 **As such they are at times used more as political gestures than anything else, and the same applies to the foreign awards listed. The records show that many of them have been to awarded to flag officers, politicians, actors, whoever's the current flavour of the month.**

 **For that matter, from my research, the combat medals they were awarded were in line with many that have been awarded in the real world for less than the reasons laid out in the story. FWIW**

 **This chapter is relatively short and fluffy.**

 **Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

* * *

Ellie knew enough about pregnancies to know that Sarah was having an easier time of it that just about any other mother to be that she'd ever seen, especially given that this was her first pregnancy, and she was having twins. Just like Chuck's healing scars and other damage, the only thing that Ellie could attribute this to was the Intersect triggering the body's healing mechanisms.

The babies seemed far stronger and more active than she would have expected, too, so all the signs were that Sarah was about to have a relatively easy birth of two very healthy babies, and Ellie couldn't be happier.

Sarah wasn't exactly ecstatic about how she was feeling, this close to giving birth, but she had to concede Ellie's point, she was feeling a lot better than she'd heard of any other woman feeling when she was two weeks away from her due date. She was still working, though, because she just got bored otherwise, and it wasn't too difficult to lay in bed using the integrated keyboard, with the eighty four inch flat screen on the wall for a monitor.

Chuck was panicking more than Sarah, as the one going through this, or Ellie, as her doctor, were. He heard what they were saying about her being pretty comfortable and healthy as a horse, but he was still constantly worried about how she was, did she need anything? He was coming up to see her at least once an hour, and had only cut back to that when she complained that neither of them were getting anything done while he was popping up every half hour.

They had a full delivery room set up in the medical centre on B2, and had the best agency cleared OB/GYN medical team available on call. When the time came, they would be picked up in WV1 and flown straight to Quixote House. That time came at 0230, a week before Sarah's due date. Sarah had to call out to Chuck as he was working in Dulcinea's Boudoir (as per usual), but as soon as she told him it was time, he sent out the messages queued up for that moment and ready, then he just picked her up and carried her to the elevator to take her straight to the delivery room on B2.

The elevator was being called for the others before they got down to B2, so he knew that Casey was flying off to collect the medical team and get them back there ASAP. Ellie, Emma, Carina and Zondra were down on B2 with them within five minutes, and Bry had taken WH1 off to pick up the girls by then too. As with everything else for this family, all the plans were in place, just awaiting the necessary triggers.

Aside from the medical team, the girls were the only ones who had to be collected because they were determined to be there (they WEREN'T going to miss out on being there for their brother and sister's births), which was why Bry'd gone to get them. They'd all had a bag packed, ready to come and stay for a few days, for the past couple of weeks and had their phones with them at all times, just waiting for the call to say that Uncle Bry was coming to get them. Bry had them back at Quixote House well before Sarah actually went into labour, so they had their chance to give her a hug and a kiss before they were ushered out (as only Chuck, Emma and Ellie were in there with Sarah and the medical team for the birth itself).

Once Sarah went into labour, as Ellie had expected, the Intersect ensured that the births were relatively easy for her, Charlene Emma Carmichael was born after just three and a half hours of labour, and Samuel Stephen Carmichael was born less than fifteen minutes later. They were both perfect, healthy, and far more alert than anyone in the delivery room had ever seen babies be at birth. They registered everything around them, and recognised both of their parents when they saw them.

While the only things that really mattered to Sarah and Chuck at that point were that their babies were healthy and perfect, they didn't miss the fact that their newborn babies were taking in the new world they were born into far more than other babies did. It looked like Ellie had also been right about the fact that the Intersect mechanisms that had been helping Sarah through her pregnancy had also been working on the babies, because their development was way past what was expected at that point.

Once the mother and babies had been checked out and all were declared to be amazingly healthy, the medical team were taken back to their respective hospitals. After that, Sarah and the twins were taken back up to the penthouse. Both of the twins had Sarah's features and Chuck's curls, but aside from that, Charlene was a mini-Sarah, with her golden blonde hair and deep blue eyes, while Samuel was a mini-Chuck with his brown hair and eyes, there was no question of the one they took after, but nor was there any doubt about their other parent either.

* * *

From the start, the twins were less trouble than most babies, and their grandmothers kept asking their parents why they couldn't have been good babies like this? The only issue with them was that they HAD to have at least one of their parents near them at all times, no-one else would do, it had to be Mom or Dad.

Chuck tried to take his share of the load off Sarah, and he was usually looking after the twins for most of the night to let Sarah get her rest, because she needed the rest to enable her body to recover from the strain of the pregnancy.

Sarah started back into an exercise regime a couple of weeks after the twins were born, starting out easy and ramping it up quickly (but not too quickly, as her sister-in-law and doctor was being a tyrant when it came to forcing her to be careful and not strain herself), because she was determined to get back into shape ASAP. That was putting some additional strain on her, though, which meant that she was still taking her afternoon naps to recuperate.

She didn't wait more than a couple of days before she started back at work, though, at first she used the setup in the master bedroom, just as she had in the last stages of her pregnancy, but after a week she'd moved into Dulcinea's Boudoir with the twins to use the desk and computers there. Within a month she was back to putting some time in in the offices, taking the twins down with her as a) they fretted if they didn't have her or Chuck nearby, and b) they were breast feeding.

There were a few comments from some of the ones brought in for the operations briefings when Sarah (or Chuck) started bringing the babies into the briefings, but they were quickly quelled by looks from the parents, or others of the Operations Command senior officers, that promised pain and mayhem if they didn't shut up NOW.

The ones who had worked with Operations Command previously knew that when she was seven months pregnant, Sarah was there, running the operations team quite capably. For that matter, even though she wasn't physically in the office for the last two months of her pregnancy, they knew that she'd still been working at close to her normal levels from home (even though most of them didn't know that "home" was only a few floors above them). What that meant to them was that they had absolutely no qualms about them having the babies in the room as long as their parents were there, doing what they were doing.

* * *

The operations run by OC were changing, now that the Wraiths were operational. Novatech had produced and delivered twenty of the Wraith series aircraft so far (four each of WH & WV models, and six each of the WT & WS models), so they could be used to insert the special ops teams directly into a site undetected, and that reduced the time taken and increased the success and safety of the operations more than anyone outside of the group could have believed.

The OC officers directing the operations could fly a team in with the Wraiths and direct the operation from the Wraiths, using drones and other fixed and mobile cameras to keep an eye on everything. They'd fly in a special ops team to take out the defences and hold the site until larger forces of regular troops were flown in to take over, then they and the special ops teams would leave.

* * *

The twins were only a few weeks old when Chuck started singing them to sleep, accompanying himself with his guitar. The first time he'd just sung a lullaby to them, but after that he brought the guitar in and kept it in Dulcinea's Boudoir to play as he sang to them.

That guitar had caused more than a few raised eyebrows from people who knew instruments when it was hanging up in the games room, it didn't look like much to the uninformed, but it was a custom made very high end Martin. When some guy had gone to take it down to play around with it, the studio musician who had been looking at it in awe at the time had slapped his hands away, almost starting a fight until Chuck had gone in to to see what was going on.

When he found out, he informed the one who'd been reaching for it that being allowed to attend their party didn't give him carte blanche to handle whatever of their personal belongings he felt like. The guy had been getting belligerent until Chuck had stepped right up to him, getting in his face and telling him to "Leave, Now!" in a tone that almost made him wet his pants and DID make him hurry out of there.

Once he'd left, Chuck took the Martin down and handed it to the musician, who handled it with reverence and only upon getting a smile and a nod from Chuck did he start to play it. The others in the room began to understand what the big deal was when they heard the exquisite tones coming from the guitar when played by a true artist. When he was done he'd carefully handed the Martin back to Chuck and thanked him quietly, but with great feeling.

Sarah only found out that Chuck could sing when she woke from her afternoon nap one day to hear him singing to the twins. She came to the door of Dulcinea's Boudoir (Chuck took the twins in there so he could watch over them as he worked while she took her naps), and watched and listened as he sang to their children. When he was done and the twins were asleep she quietly asked "How come I've never heard you sing before? You've been holding out on me."

Chuck smiled up at her from where he was sitting on the floor besides the twin's bassinet and reached out his hand to her, supporting her as she settled down beside him so that they could talk without waking the twins. "That's because I stopped around the time that I met you, I mainly only ever played for myself, and only really sang when I played. I hardly had any time to myself when I was with Jill, and after she and Bryce did what they did, I just lost the will to play. I spent most of the next five years working to push the anger at them down, along with dealing with the regret over finding and losing something wonderful in the space of one night."

Sarah smiled at that last and pulled his face down to kiss him. "Keep that up and these two and the girls will have more brothers or sisters soon mister."

That got a smile out of Chuck. "That actually sounds kinda nice."

"Mmmhmmm. No, wait, I mean yeah, it does sound nice, but I can't afford to stay pregnant all the time, and we'd never get anything done."

She saw the regret in his eyes as he asked. "So the twins will be it for us, then?"

"No, that isn't what I meant, of course I want to have more children with you, I'm just saying that we need to pace ourselves and enjoy our time with these two for now while we keep up with our responsibilities."

Chuck pulled her back in for another soft kiss "OK, that sounds like a plan."

* * *

They did get called back to D.C. when the twins were about three months old for presentations from the Australian Ambassador, the Australians had been working on awards like the French, Germans, and British, but it had taken them a little longer to process. Chuck and Sarah didn't find out what the delay was until they went to D.C. with the twins for the presentations. (That had been their one condition, they would have foregone any awards if someone tried to tell them that they couldn't bring their babies with them as they were still fretting if they were away from their parents, and they weren't prepared to be separated from them either.)

There was a twist when they were awarded the honours, they were both made Honorary Companions of the Order of Australia (Military Division), and then the Honorary portions of the awards were promptly stripped away by the act of granting both of them dual citizenship of the U.S.A. and Australia (this was what had taken the extra time, apparently there were a lot of machinations within the Australian and U.S. governments, and some collusion with the British, to get this through).

At that point the British Ambassador had stepped forward and presented them with the paperwork to indicate that the Honorary portion of their Knight Commander and Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath awards had also been removed, so henceforth they were permitted to use the titles Sir Charles and Dame Sarah.

The Australian citizenship angle had come out of something that Sarah had mentioned when they were meeting with the intelligence heads and dignitaries after they'd foiled the Ring's plans to wipe out any Intelligence agency heads that they didn't own and replace them with puppets that they did. The information that started this was that her mother had told her that she had cousins in Australia. Apparently her great uncle had taken his family to Australia around the same time her grandfather took his family to the United States, so she had family somewhere around Sydney?

There was a bit of good natured laughter in the room at their reactions when their awards were upgraded, because it was the first time anyone present had seen this pair struck dumb. The acquisition of a new title knocked Chuck back a little as he had to get his head around the fact that he was Mr Charles Carmichael, Dr Charles Carmichael (he'd gotten his Doctor of Science in Computer Science), Rear Admiral Charles Carmichael, and now Sir Charles Carmichael.

Similarly, Sarah was Mrs Sarah Carmichael, Dr Sarah Carmichael (her doctorate was the Doctor of Juridical Science for Law, she'd completed it after she'd been assigned to the Intersect Team, as that was the first time she'd had people prepared to cover for her as she did so), Colonel Sarah Carmichael (that was slated to change in the foreseeable future, but they didn't know about that yet), and now Dame Sarah Carmichael.

When they got home, they had to put up with a good deal of ribbing from the family, staff and friends about their new titles, but that settled down as they went back to work.

* * *

As she was still breast feeding, Sarah wasn't going out on any operations, she was back at Quixote House holding down the fort. Chuck tried to get out of heading off on missions as well, but there were still times that they needed all hands on deck, or they required his special skills, so he had to go.

Their new process was taking Operations Command's reputation to new heights, some operations were still the common targeted special ops strikes, and they were over in a fraction of the time and an even higher success rate than before, but the big operations were a whole new process, they'd take the special ops guys in to take and secure the site, but they'd just hold the site long enough for the regular troops to take over and then they'd move on.

This process was succeeding far better than operations ever had before, and provided even more validation for the initiative to create Operations Command and the new flag rank position for its Commander. It also got the powers that be's new proposals for Operations Command fast tracked, so the senior officers of Operations Command were once again called to D.C. for more award ceremonies, just six months after they'd gone back for the Australian presentations.

* * *

Chuck knew what was happening, as he'd been filled in and had had to arrange for the three uniform jackets to be sent across to D.C. to be prepared, and Sarah could read her husband well enough to have a good idea of what was going on as well, but the others didn't.

On the day, they had the twins in baby (or more to the point toddler, as by nine months the twins were walking and talking pretty well) versions of their dress uniforms, so Charlie was in a tiny version of Sarah's dress blues and Sam was in a tiny version of Chuck's dress whites, and as usual they were being well behaved, amazingly so according to the other parents present in the Oval Office.

Sarah was promoted to U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Sarah Carmichael so that she was now one level above the people who reported to her, given that Carina and Zonda were also promoted to U.S. Navy Captain Carina Miller and U.S. Navy Captain Zondra Rizzo (The decision to do that was because they still had occasional issues with the old school types not accepting that they had to take direction from younger officers at a lower rank, so that was alleviated a little by Carina and Zondra holding the same rank as anyone assigned to work with them.)

At the dinner afterwards, Chuck overheard a discussion between the President and the Secretary of Defense (he still had to get Ellie to test his hearing, sight and all the rest, because he was sure that he was registering a hell of a lot more than he used to).

"Those two have to be the most highly ranked couple in our services."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right on that Mr President, but they're definitely the most decorated, especially if you only look at the serious medals, Hell, you could extend it to their family (Bry was Godfather to Chuck and Ellie and Casey was Godfather to Charlie and Sam, so they qualified as family to others as well now) or even the unit and still put money on them having more serious medals than any other unit."

The President looked around the room and grinned "Yeah, we've definitely got Hero Central there."

The way that Ellie and Sarah looked at him with a smile when the President said that made Chuck certain that they'd heard as much as he had, but then Sarah darted her eyes off to the Secretary of Defense, and when Chuck saw that he'd gone over to where the Joint Chiefs of Staff were standing in a group he groaned, because he knew that the name "Hero Central" was going to get around very quickly now.

Sure enough, word of Hero Central got back to the office faster than they did at Mach 1.5, and the guys had already strung up a banner saying "WELCOME TO HERO CENTRAL", as well as mounting the new pictures of their senior officers in place of the old ones. When they walked in, they were greeted with "Admiral Carmichael, Sir!" "General Carmichael, Ma'am!" though the volume was moderated as they all knew what it was like to incur Sarah's (in particular) ire if they woke or disturbed the twins.

They shared a laugh about the banner, but Chuck looked at Greg, who got the message, and it was down the next time Chuck came out of his office, but he knew it wasn't gone, and it only took him a few minutes to find it strung up in the mess. It wasn't on display to outsiders there, though, so he was happy to let the guys leave it up in there.

* * *

Operations Command was decidedly top heavy for a military unit, they had a two star USN Rear Admiral as the Commander, a one star USAF Brigadier General as the Deputy Commander, then three USN Captains, a USA Colonel and a USMC Colonel as the next tier, four USN Commanders as the next again (Greg had been promoted to full Commander twelve months ago to solidify his role of the commander the ex special-ops office staff who were involved in operations planning), and a USAF Major and two USA Majors (Rick and Vicky had also been promoted to Major over the course of the past eighteen months) as the last tier under that to round out their senior officers.

Then, their junior officers included a collection of nearly twenty USA, USMC and USAF Captains and First Lieutenants and USN Lieutenants and Lieutenant Junior Grades, which was followed by six warrant officers of various levels and services. The rest of the staff was one Sergeant Major (Tommy, the Special Forces heavy weapons specialist that Chuck had saved when he lost his leg on an operation), and a mixture of just over twenty Master Sergeants, Sergeants, Corporals, Chief Petty Officers and Petty Officers.

They still had some come swaggering in, convinced that they were God's gift to the world, and especially to women, so that they would cause a minor disruption to proceedings (well, not so minor when they made a play at one of the girls and got their arses kicked in front of everyone), but those incidents had reduced as word got around about what happened when you fucked with Operations Command. It hadn't taken many incidents for most of the outsiders to get the point, that you were just as likely to have the other Special Ops people in the room go at you as you were the OC people, because the OC people were an entrenched, and very well respected, part of the US Special Operations community.

* * *

Sarah, Carina and Zondra's promotions (and a few additional medal presentations for some of those in the group) also marked another major change for the family, in that they'd finished copying all the CIA Archive tapes and had shipped all the hardware over to be installed in the Dungeon along with what had already gone over.

As well as that, now that the Roark Instruments facilities had been legally signed over to Stephen and remodeled for Novatech's purposes, that meant that there was nothing stopping Stephen, Mary and Leslie from moving over to the West Coast to be with the rest of the family now. When they did move over, Stephen and Mary took one of the last two apartments on level 4, while Leslie moved in with Carina.

This was leaving Aunt D and Roan by themselves on the East Coast, but they'd been talking about semi-retiring anyway (knowing that the last apartment had been earmarked for them for some time). Aunt D had been having discussions with Chuck and Sarah about taking over the Directors' roles for the Special Projects Group and the Intersect Group.

The initiative had already been signed off by the DNI and the President in preparation for the day that she'd go into semi-retirement at least (she'd retain her active status to continue working with the team, just hand off her major roles and relocate), so it was only waiting on her to make a move.

They all knew that this would happen somewhere not too far down the track, but for now, she would be staying in D.C. with Roan and continuing to handle the political issues for them.

* * *

 **A/N: Yeah, I know this was pretty much a filler, and fluff, but I'm having trouble finding anything from Season four that's really usable to hook the story into the series at the moment.**

 **NB: Wilf, you only have yourself to blame, you did pretty much dare me, after all ;) Oh yeah, sorry, I added them up and it's more like two thirds than just under half.**


	27. Absent Friends

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

* * *

"Charlie honey, please, we have to get downstairs for my meeting!" Sarah pleaded with her eighteen month old daughter who was giving her a very determined look that she would have found adorable if she wasn't already running late for a major operation briefing.

Charlene pouted at her mama and just said "NO!", but a few seconds later she knew that she'd pushed too far.

"Charlene Emma Carmichael, come here and get dressed right now!" The switch from a pleading mother to the woman who WOULD be obeyed opened the floodgates as Charlie ran to Sarah crying, "I'm sorry Mama!"

Sarah hugged her and kissed her on the top of the head as she whispered "It's OK Honey, I love you, I do, but you can't keep making Mama late", she quickly got Charlie out of her pyjamas and into pants, then pulled her dress on over her head, hastily brushing her hair out and tying it back in a ponytail before wiping her tears away and kissing her again.

As soon as Charlie was dressed and presentable, Sarah extended her hand with a smile to Sam, who was sitting there with wide eyes as he took in the altercation between his sister and mother. "Come on Sammie honey."

He hopped up and toddled over to her for a hug and a kiss "You're Mama's good boy, aren't you?", then she picked up both of them and her bag, hurrying to the elevator to take them down to Operations Command offices.

Sarah was so used to the way her babies were that she often didn't register the fact that they showed more development (in capabilities rather than size) and maturity than most children over twice their age. The twins could walk and run pretty well, and Chuck, Sarah and their sisters had started them out on early years gymnastics at twelve months, by which stage they had both finished potty training.

By now they both also spoke at least five or six languages surprisingly well (something that their parents had picked up on and fostered early on was that they were getting a grasp on what was being said in other languages, as well as English, it actually embarrassed Emma a little, as she hadn't been able to manage much more than half of that herself before she'd loaded the BI).

They acted so much like pint sized adults a lot of the time that most of the family (including their own parents) often forgot that they were only eighteen months old. Yes, they had their toys and cartoons and tantrums (sometimes) but they just didn't act like toddlers most of the time.

As she hurried into the office, Greg came up to take the twins off of her with a "Morning General" She smiled and said "Thank you Commander", going into General mode as she handed off her little monsters before rushing off to the briefing. Vicky was waiting to take her bag off her and hand her the files for the briefing, dropping Sarah's bag behind her own desk before following her into the briefing room.

Greg tried to keep a serious look on his face as he looked down at the twins, but gave up, because they always made him melt whenever they looked at him like that, so he just smiled at them and took them to their grandmother's office.

When they saw Emma they shouted out "Nana!" and started reaching for her. Emma smiled as she took her grandchildren off the towering, battle scarred warrior, saying "Thank you Greg, did she make it in time?" he snorted, saying "Just, this one obviously made her late again" as he gently stroked Charlie's hair.

Emma smiled as she shook her head in mock exasperation, asking her grandchildren "What do you say?" They chorused "Thank you Uncle Greg!", which prompted a beaming smile from him, but he tried to look serious as he said "Try to be good, you two!" and left.

* * *

Charlie's rebellion actually moved the briefing along more smoothly, because Sarah was still so miffed at Charlie that she came down HARD on anyone who wasn't progressing the issues under discussion. Any self important officer who felt the need to make unnecessary or unrelated comments was frozen out by General Ice Queen, and no-one was stupid enough to do that more than once after feeling her ire.

After the briefing, Sarah retrieved her bag from Vicky's desk, ducking into Chuck's office to compare notes (and to get the hug and kiss that she'd been missing, since he'd had to head down to the office a couple of hours before to get on top of things) before heading into her own office to start wading through her workload.

Once she'd gotten the most urgent matters out of the way, though, she went to her mother's office to collect the twins and bring them back to her office (after taking them in to see Chuck), because she couldn't stand being separated from them for long. Nor could Chuck for that matter, but he had a pile of reports and proposals that he needed to get prepared to take to D.C. to present to the President among others that afternoon, and he couldn't give himself enough of a break to go and get them.

Since Sarah had taken over as the Director of the Intersect Project and Chuck had taken over as the Director of the Special Projects Group, their workloads had increased, as had their need to go to D.C. for meetings with the big brass quite often (Aunt D had sat in on many meetings for them when she was back in D.C.). At least they had the Falcons to shuttle back and forth with.

* * *

Novatech had provided them with the Valkyries to make long distance travel a little easier, Stephen and Leslie had managed to get the Valkyrie near hypersonic aircraft operational about six months back. The full sized Valkyrie Liners were large aircraft (around 72M long), considering that they couldn't carry much than the 20M long Wraith Trucks (though it could be more when it came to passengers), but their cruising speed was over Mach 4.5, they had intercontinental range and Stephen and Leslie (with assistance from others) had engineered VTOL into the airframes, so they could put down in any area big enough to take them.

When the quarter scale Falcons that they'd first built as the unmanned flight prototypes had been redesigned into a tandem three seater aircraft, they'd retained the performance and VTOL capabilities of the Valkyrie Liners, but they could put down in a much smaller area, so they were what Chuck and Sarah used for their trips to and from D.C. most of the times they needed to go, because they cut the travel time to under a third of the Wraiths' (which was already half the time that most conventional transports took).

They could also land them on the reinforced flight deck that Roan had had built on top of the Penthouse. Novatech had built and delivered six Valkyrie Falcons and six Valkyrie Liners, and half of the Falcons were kept at Quixote House most of the time (along with two of the Wraith Hatches, two of the Wraith Vans and one Wraith Truck).

* * *

Chuck put together everything he had to by 1100, ducked into Sarah's office to kiss her and the twins goodbye (and playfully slap Greg when he pouted and asked "Where's mine?" as he'd been in there working on some Operations parameters with Sarah) before bolting out the door to get up to the flight deck.

VF1 was normally left configured for him (just as VF2 was normally left configured for Sarah, as they were the ones that had to use the Falcons at least once or twice a week each), so he put his bag and uniform jacket into its storage compartment and hopped into the front cockpit, quickly running through the check lists and warming up the engines as he strapped himself in.

It didn't take long for the Falcon to get up to operating altitude and cruising speed, and he'd landed it on the usual Pentagon roof top just over three quarters of an hour later, so he made the 1500 (local time) meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff with minutes to spare, though he was still straightening himself out as he hurried up to the relevant room.

From the Joint Chief's meeting, he headed off to the White House with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for a special National Security Council meeting. He had been required to attend to present information to them at times since before Operations Command was created, but it was getting to be a common occurrence of late.

It was less usual that DCI Hanson was present in this meeting, and Chuck didn't miss Hanson's wry grin as he looked around the table at the other people who were also there as a direct result of Chuck and the team's efforts to take down the Ring. The current National Security Advisor, Secretary of Homeland Security and Homeland Security Advisor, as well as himself, the DCI, were all there as a result of the purge that Chuck had instigated less than two years before.

It was also common knowledge that the DNI attributed the strength of his position to what Chuck and his teams were delivering, so it all added up to Chuck being considered a very influential, and dangerous, man. The DNI had shared with Chuck privately that that was part of the reason that the President insisted on Chuck attending so many of these meetings was to keep reminding those present of what had happened to the others that he'd rooted out.

Chuck's primary reason for being there that day was something he would have rather not have been involved in, as the meeting was for the purpose of issuing a kill authorisation, and the Special Projects team had been instrumental in extracting the evidence that had led to it being brought to the National Security Council. There was little doubt as to what the outcome of the meeting would be, right from the start, though as the evidence was considered to be irrefutable.

Chuck was asked for his recommendation for the execution of the order and he recommended a Special Ops strike over a missile or bomb strike, citing less collateral damage as the primary reason for this choice. The President smirked as he asked the DNI whether that could be arranged, who only just managed to keep a straight face as he replied.

"I believe that we have the resources to manage that Mr President", but the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and DCI both snorted at that, which made the others in the meeting look around, wondering what the hell was going on? The President told the DNI "I'll leave it in your hands, then" and wound up the meeting, signalling the DNI, DCI, Chuck and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to stay.

Once the others had left, he turned to the Chairman and DCI "Way to keep things under wraps guys!", so the Chairman responded "With all due respect Mr President, you weren't much better than we were!" He looked a bit sheepish as he conceded the point, and then turned to Chuck to say, "So, you promised more pictures of the twins? We haven't seen any in months!" Chuck covered his smile as he shook his head and hooked his computer up to the display again.

No-one would have believed their eyes if they saw what was going on in the room, three of the most powerful men in the United States "Awwww"ing and laughing as Chuck showed them pictures and told them stories of the twins' antics, including Charlie almost making Sarah late for the briefing again that morning.

After the meeting, Chuck got a lift back to the Pentagon with the Chairman to get "his" Falcon and fly back to L.A.

* * *

With Chuck's parents living in Quixote House with the rest of them now, they had time to talk about the issues that they (or at least Stephen) were feeling guilty about (the fact that the way they'd turned their backs on their children wasn't anywhere near the top of that list didn't do them any favours when it came to straightening things out with Ellie (or Chuck) though).

The main thing that Stephen asked, or more to the point demanded, Chuck's help with was fixing Agent X, the man who had been his friend and co-worker, Hartley Winterbottom, up until he loaded a sabotaged Intersect image and became the monster, Alexei Volkoff.

The fact that Hartley had been turned into Alexei by his creation was something that Stephen had been obsessing about for twenty years now, and he was pretty much demanding that Chuck help him make this good, as if Chuck owed him something.

Chuck understood what he was after, but that didn't stop him being angry that his father's fixation on Hartley was making him ignore the fact that he was just making the rift between them wider. Mary saw what was going on as well as Ellie, Sarah and the others did, and she tried to stop Stephen from doing this, but he couldn't accept what she was saying, even after he'd been banished to one of the other bedrooms by her.

Stephen still had copies of the Agent X code that Hartley had loaded, so Chuck had engineered a mechanism to remove it, but getting access to Volkoff to remove the Agent X program was going to be extremely difficult, so he prepared a case to justify a multi-nation exercise to eradicate Volkoff Industries altogether (luckily Volkoff Industries was near the top of everyone's dangerous organisation lists, so that made the job of getting approval easier).

Chuck got the agreement from all the stakeholder nations and launched into the planning for the operation, which would include what had by now become the team's signature move, "wiping out" all of Volkoff Industries' liquid assets ($877 million in this instance).

The others couldn't stop watching the interactions between Chuck and his father, because it was like a train wreck, terrible to watch but they just couldn't look away. Stephen just kept pushing, demanding that Chuck make this a priority over the thousand and one things he had to do for Operations Command, the Special Projects Group, the Intersect Project and Piranha (and his own family).

Even when he'd pushed Chuck to the point of telling him that they needed to get the apartment that he and Mary were sharing back because they'd run out of apartments, Stephen couldn't see what was going on until Mary all but broke his jaw and threw him out, removing him from the apartment's access lists and telling him not to try and come back unless he'd made things right with their son.

Knowing that his father's ego could quite possibly make him try and take all of the intellectual property of Novatech (if not more of their entities) and scrub it from the systems if he left, at that point Chuck secured all the systems to prevent him doing anything of the kind. As good a hacker as Stephen was, compared to most people, there was no way that he could defeat something put together by the Piranha.

The thing was, Stephen was only responsible for part of the technology created by Novatech, Leslie, Chuck, Jeff, Anna, and even Ellie had all played their part the creations of Novatech, and Chuck wasn't about to let his father steal what the rest of them had put their blood, sweat and tears into creating.

Stephen would still get a quarter of any Novatech profits, to add to the fortune he'd gotten from Roark, but he wasn't going to be allowed to take away anything that he didn't create on his own.

One thing that Stephen had never bothered getting his head around was the fact that Novatech, like Charlemagne Computers Etc, Piranha Security & Technology and several other cover companies that they used, were all wholly owned subsidiaries of Charlemagne Holdings, which had Chuck, Ellie and Sarah as its directors. Jeff and Anna were listed along with them on CCE, Casey was listed with them on PS&T and Stephen and Leslie were listed with them on Novatech, but the three of them controlled the companies and everything they produced, and that wasn't something that Stephen had any chance of getting around. The rest of the family who had bothered to ask understood how things worked, and they were completely comfortable with the fact that those three would do the best for everyone, but Stephen still lived inside his own head.

The problem was, Stephen still couldn't understand why everyone had turned on him. When Aunt D asked him if he'd had the sessions with Dr Dreyfus that they'd set up for him after Chuck and Ellie overwrote the Intersect that he'd loaded with the Bartowski Intersect, Stephen barked back at her "No, because I didn't need them." Aunt D just looked at him in contempt when he said that.

"I thought you were supposed to be brilliant, Stephen? Have a look around you, you're being thrown out by your son, AND your wife, and I wouldn't suggest that you ask Ellie for help with this as she's likely to do more damage to you than Mary did."

She started to walk away, but she stopped and turned back. "You've alienated everyone here, at least twice now. How can you NOT see that you need help Stephen? As we heard Mary telling you, you only have one chance to fix this, if you don't make things right with Chuck, you'll be out of here and it will be the last time you hear from anyone here."

"You're the only one who can't see that you're in SERIOUS need of psychiatric help! Either work with Dr Dreyfus to get your head straight and do whatever it takes to get Chuck to accept your apologies, and to make it up to him and Ellie, or leave now and never come back!"

"You've got Roark's money now, so you should be look after yourself quite well, and don't worry about your friend Hartley, Chuck will rescue him and fix him, even though he's been a psychotic monster who's destroyed people, families, or even entire districts for his own amusement for twenty years now, because Chuck is a far better man than either of you, and that's what he does, he saves people."

Stephen glared at her "You don't kn.."

He was cut off when Roan grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him to his feet, shouting in his face. "She doesn't know what she's talking about? Who do you think has been trying to look out for your children while you were ignoring them? Diane, and Bryan, and even me when I could help, WE have tried to be there for your children because YOU couldn't be bothered, and you still think that you're the aggrieved party!"

Roan was actually spitting in his face as he shouted at Stephen, he was so enraged, and he started slamming him into the wall to punctuate his points. "You have two choices Bartowski! You can get the help you were supposed to get after your children fixed your Intersect and make things right with them, or you can leave, NOW!"

At that point the lift doors opened and Josie jumped out, shouting "Dad! Let him go, he's not worth it!" The security system had popped up an alert due to the raised voices on level four and they'd brought the image from the cameras up in Operations Command, as soon as they saw what was going on, they'd run for the lift. Ellie, Casey and Bry came out of the lift behind Josie.

Ellie spoke up in a defeated voice. "She's right, Uncle Roan, he's not worth it, don't bother." Then she walked down the hall to stand in front of her father "Uncle Roan is mostly right, you can either get professional help and make things right with Chuck, or you can leave, now. Don't bother about me though, I told you before that if you didn't make things right with Chuck you would be dead to me, and you've just made it worse, so that's it for me."

Mary came out of the apartment and she and Ellie wrapped their arms around each other and cried.

Stephen slid down the wall and sat on the floor, crying too. After a few minutes, he lifted his tear stained face and asked "Where do I have to go to get help?" Bry looked at Diane and she nodded, indicating that she'd make the arrangements with Dr Dreyfus, at that he looked at Mary and she reluctantly nodded, so Bry hauled Stephen to his feet and frog marched him inside to his room to pack.

A couple of hours later, the arrangements had been made, and Bry flew Stephen to Maryland in one of the Falcons, and he would be staying there until Dr Dreyfus had managed to straighten him out, or he disappeared from their lives, because if he didn't sort this out he'd never be returning.

* * *

Meanwhile, they were tracing any and all leads into Volkoff Industries that they could find, hacking into their computer systems, tapping all their communications links, having agents infiltrate their facilities to copy hardcopy or off-line storage devices, they were doing anything and everything that would give them more intel on VI.

About four weeks after the altercation at Quixote House, the operation to eliminate Volkoff Industries was kicked off, Chuck, Jeff and Anna initiated the millions of transactions that made the Volkoff funds apparently disappear, frantically working to scrub all evidence of the transactions from all the logs as they bounced around the world like the balls in millions of pinball machines.

The assaults were kicked off simultaneously in dozens of sites around the world, capturing and/or wiping out systems, taking down or taking out the security forces, blowing up labs, warehouses, stockpiles and shipments of armaments, explosives and ammunitions.

In the midst of all this, Bry landed a Wraith Truck on the roof of the facility in Moscow where Alexei Volkoff was actually located, and Bry, and Mary, went in with three Special Forces platoons. They took out any security forces that they encountered on the way to Volkoff's office with suppressed weapons to avoid tipping the other side off.

They'd attached the remote access devices to the security and computer networks as soon as they'd breached the facility, and Chuck took over the security system (the signal was being relayed via the Wraith Truck) to hide them from Volkoff's security people, so the only opposition that they came up against was the regular patrols. He was also hacking into the computer systems and grabbing everything he could find.

When they got to Volkoff's office, Mary shot Alexei with the same modified tranq that Chuck had used on Laszlo, so that he was conscious and aware, but unable to fight, while the others took out the guards in the room. Mary walked up to Alexei and got two of the Special Forces troops to hold him up while she fitted the Intersect glasses onto his face, talking to him as she did so.

"If this works Hartley, and I'm sure it will, because my baby boy wrote the fixes and he's a lot better than his father ever was, you'll be back to the man you were before you let Graham coerce you into this, I just hope for your sake that you don't remember anything of the last twenty years."

With that she pressed the button to manually activate the glasses, closing her eyes and turning her head away as she did so. The soldiers holding Alexei followed her example as Alexei bucked and twisted in what appeared to be a seizure. When he passed out and slumped in their grips, they continued to hold him up while the others collected any and all digital and physical media that they could find, along with his desktop, laptop and tablet computers.

Once they had as much as they thought they could get, they headed back to the roof where the Wraith Truck was by the shortest route, boarding it and taking off as quickly as they could.

* * *

Hartley came to halfway across the Atlantic, looking around in confusion (and not a little trepidation to find himself surrounded by very dangerous looking soldiers). One of the Platoon leaders went up to the cockpit to knock on the door and report "Ma'am, he's come around". Mary and Bry both came back to see him, and find out whether Chuck's Agent X removal program had worked.

When he saw them Hartley asked, "Mary, Bryan, what is going on?" He stopped to look at the men around him and the cabin that they were in. "And where are we?" Mary and Bry looked at each other, Hartley was back at least, that was a start.

Mary sat down beside him and started talking while Bry hung onto something while he stood nearby. "Do you remember agreeing to load the Agent X program?"

Hartley nodded and said "Yes".

"What do you remember after that?"

"We were in the lab, and I loaded the Agent X persona and… and that's the last thing I remember until now?"

He was really looking at her for the first time now. "Please forgive me for saying this Mary, but you look terrible, you look (he hesitated before continuing) years older than I remember, just what happened after I loaded Agent X?"

Mary drew a breath and looked down, before looking back up at him and starting to talk. "Hartley, the program you loaded was corrupted, intentionally, by Ted Roark, under orders from Langston Graham. The Alexei Volkoff persona you loaded with the Agent X program was more extreme than planned, because it had been hacked up by Roark, and you were a little out of control."

There were a few exclamations around them, but the look that Bry swept over the areas where they emanated from quelled them quite effectively, and he waved everyone back out of earshot. Mary continued.

"We argued with Graham to terminate the exercise and extract you, but he overruled us, saying that it was working even more effectively than we'd planned, and you'd come out of it after six months, anyway. When we were getting close to the six month mark, I went in, to extract you when the program terminated, but it didn't terminate, and when I tried the manual triggers to make it terminate, none of them worked either."

"I tried to get out, but by then Graham had notified you, Volkoff, that I was a CIA agent to get you to kill me, only another thing that Roark made go haywire was that mild attraction that you and Stephen coded into the Agent X program to make it easier for me to get close to you and extract you, it wasn't a mild attraction any more, it was a full blown obsession. That at least made you swallow my story that I'd turned and wanted to stay with you, so I lived and became your right hand man cum girl Friday."

Hartley looked stricken. "Mary I didn't, we didn't?" She smiled as she shook her head. "No, Hartley, I think Roark hacking up the program must have allowed some of your core personality to peek through in that area at least, because even Alexei Volkoff wanted to romance me and get me to fall for him, so he never tried to force himself on me, he just used me as his enforcer and tried to woo me."

He sank back in relief and she squeezed his arm gently.

"Anyway, you had your people investigate me and were watching Stephen and the children after they'd found them, so there was no way to escape without endangering them, and I had to stay there. Diane, Bry and I worked out a way to communicate with each other, so they could tell me about Stephen and the children. Graham kept pushing Stephen to finish the Intersect development but Stephen was falling apart, and those ones that Graham forced him to accept onto the team, Roark and Zarnow and the rest, were useless without you and Stephen providing the drivers to move the development forward."

The look that crossed Mary's face told Hartley that he wasn't going to enjoy hearing the next part.

"Graham was getting impatient, so when about two years or so later, Stephen was still refusing to do any more testing of the active version of the Intersect until he was sure it was safe (so that he didn't have anyone else's life on his conscience) Graham got Zarnow to do it. It was as bad as the initial tests had been, and every test subject was either killed or had their brains burned out. The only two people who'd ever survived loading the active Intersect without catastrophic damage were Charles and Stephen."

"What, what do you mean Charles and Stephen, your boy Charles, he had THAT loaded into his head?" Mary nodded.

"Yes, it was just after I went to retrieve you. Stephen, well he wasn't right after I left, and he forgot to lock his workroom when he went out one time. Charles, well you know how inquisitive he was, he went in to look around as Stephen would never let him in there, and he apparently started the load sequence on the computer that Stephen had just compiled it on."

"What he loaded was the programs and some limited databases that Stephen had put together, the same things that had destroyed the initial test subjects, so when Stephen came back in to see the "program completed" prompt on the screen and Charles standing there, staring at it, he thought that he'd destroyed our son. But then Charles started talking to him and he was FINE!"

"Stephen checked him over as well as he could, but he couldn't find anything wrong with him, and then Stephen got the stupid idea that this version was safe, because Charles had loaded it without any adverse effects, so he loaded it himself. He was close enough to Charles that it didn't brainwipe him or kill him, but it hit him a lot harder than it did Charles, and he started to deteriorate, that was part of the reason that he couldn't get the Intersect program finished for Graham, he wasn't 100% any more."

"Anyway, Zarnow went behind Stephen's back and run the tests on the top candidates, and it either killed them or left them brain dead. That was enough to send Stephen totally over the edge and he disappeared. Diane and Bry went hunting him, and put him into an institution to get him the help he needed when they found him, and they gave Eleanor and Charles new identities and relocated them to Los Angeles. That was where they had Stephen, so they thought that when he recovered, they could see him."

Mary looked up at Bry then, saying "Maybe you should tell this part Bry? You know it better than me?" Bry nodded, and took over the story.

"Well, Diane, Roan and I had been trying to keep an eye on the kids since Mary left, because, well you know what a space cadet Stephen was before you loaded Agent X?" Hartley nodded "Well he was much worse after Mary disappeared and Graham told him that Volkoff, you, had killed her, so we felt that we needed to look after her children while she wasn't there to do it herself." Mary reached out to squeeze his hand at that and he smiled at her.

"Anyway, when Stephen went off the reservation after Zarnow fried the test subjects, we tracked him down and put him in a private facility down in Encino under an assumed name, and took the chance to Grab Ellie and Chuck and disappear them, too. They became Elana and Karol Bartek, and we moved them down to Arcadia in L.A. because they had some of the best schools in the state."

"We tried to keep an eye on them, but we were in and out of the country a lot of the time, so Ellie effectively had to became a single mother at fifteen to her twelve year old brother. But they're amazing, they looked out for each other and worked hard, and they were doing well, well, Chuck had a bit of trouble with girls, but he grew out of that." The look on Mary's face said that there was a lot more to THAT story, but Hartley thought that that could wait.

"Once Stephen and the children had disappeared, there was nothing that y.. Volkoff's people could do to them, so we engineered her escape and got her back stateside. With both Volkoff and the CIA looking for them all though, Mary couldn't go to Ellie and Chuck safely yet, so we gave her a new identity and set her up in Encino near the private facility where Stephen was being treated."

"Over the next six months or so, Stephen managed to get back to the point where he could function in society again, but it was decided that he could get better help at that stage from specialists in D.C. so he moved over there and Mary went with him."

At that point, Mary started crying, and Hartley, concerned, asked her what was wrong? She all but shouted at him.

"We abandoned our children! We kept telling ourselves that they were safe back in California and that they were better off away from Stephen's mood swings and the rest, but they were all just excuses."

"We were enjoying being a couple without responsibilities, and Stephen was enjoying working without being forced to make terrible things for terrible people, so we just kept making up excuses and left Diane, and Bry, and Roan to worry about our children!"

"Do you know what the 'trouble with girls' that Chuck was having was Hartley? He started sleeping his way through the girls of California before he reached thirteen, and he was a father with at least three daughters when he was thirteen. They were all trying to tell us that he needed help, he needed US, but we closed them out and stayed in our own little world!"

She wiped the tears away angrily.

"Anyway, that's not your problem, Hartley, you know that you didn't come out of the Agent X program after six months, and you probably noticed that we mentioned that I only managed to get away over two years after I went in to extract you? Well, you were in there over twenty years, and we only got you out now because Chuck managed to do what Stephen never could, he reverse engineered the program you loaded to create what was needed to extract it. Then he set up and executed a world wide operation to take down the organisation that you were running, so that we'd have a chance to get in and extract you."

Hartley just stared at her for a few minutes. "Twenty years? I was something WORSE than that character we created for twenty years, my god Mary, what did I DO?"

Bry answered him, gently telling him. "You don't want to know Hartley, but it wasn't you, it was Alexei Volkoff, remember that!"

Hartley started getting agitated, demanding that they tell him what he'd done, when a dart suddenly sprouted on his neck and he slumped, unconscious. Bry looked up to see one of the platoon leaders holding a tranq pistol. The man walked down to quietly talk to them. "I'm sorry Sir, Ma'am, but he was obviously getting very worked up and we could hear him shouting, he obviously couldn't handle finding out what he'd been as Alexei Volkoff, so I thought it would be kinder to tranq him until he gets somewhere that he can get some help with that?"

Bry nodded "Yes Lieutenant, it was kinder to do it that way, thank you. Can you get the medics to ensure that he stays sedated for the rest of the flight, please?"

"Yes, sir." Bry nodded again and took Mary by the arm and led her back to the cockpit.

In the cockpit, Bry called Diane and asked her to see whether Dr Dreyfus was prepared to take on another difficult case? He explained Hartley's reaction when he'd found out that he'd been Alexei Volkoff for twenty years, and had managed to put two and two together to get an idea of what he'd been like as Volkoff.

Diane swore, they knew that this was always a possibility, but they were hoping that they could have eased him into it. Chuck had enough on his plate, she'd handle this, so she told Bry she'd contact the psychiatrist and get back to them ASAP. True to her word, she contacted them less than half an hour later to tell them to deliver Hartley to Dr Dreyfus in Maryland, adding that Chuck had organised an identity for Hartley, Harvey Winters, and that was what he'd be admitted as.

* * *

Back in the main cabin, the Special Forces soldiers were quietly discussing what they'd heard when Mary was shouting, they all knew that she was Mowgli's mother, and word was that she'd been some sort of legend in the CIA, but they weren't talking about Mowgli's mother, they were talking about what she'd shouted about HIM.

In the early days he'd been too young to go to bars etc, and his sister was just about the only girl in their circles, but none of them would have picked him for a sex machine who was sleeping his way through the girls of California, before he was even a teenager! A father to three daughters at thirteen, it was hard to reconcile with the quiet kid that the ones who'd spent time with him talked about.

After they'd been talking for a while, the cockpit door opened and Bry came into the main cabin, shutting it behind him. He looked at the ones who'd been talking and said. "What you've heard here will not be repeated to anyone, anywhere, is that understood?" When he didn't get a response he barked "That was not a rhetorical question, I asked is that understood?"

He got a chorus of "Yes, Sir!"s from around the cabin, and when he'd calmed down a little, he went on.

"For your information, he didn't find out about his daughters for over three years after they were born, and when he did, he stopped most of the partying and tried to be a good father, which he has been."

"If you heard that, you also heard what led to it, he was a kid who had no-one to turn to for advice, and he let himself be led astray, a lot, but now he's married with two more children as well as his older daughters, and he's the one who ensures that most of you guys come home, so he deserves better than having those stories about his past being spread around."

There was another chorus of "Yes, Sir!"s from around the cabin and he looked around again.

"That quiet kid that the people who knew him talked about IS Mowgli, and he's pretty much the same man now, just a bit older with a lot more responsibility. He's earned the respect coming to him, and if I do hear of any of these stories going around, I'll find out who talked and I can assure you it won't be pretty when I do!"

There was another chorus of "Yes, Sir!"s from around the cabin and he turned and went back into the cockpit.

They didn't hear anything else from the cockpit until Bry announced that they were landing.

When they were on the ground, two of the soldiers picked up Hartley and carried him around to the front door of the house, where Dr Dreyfus was waiting, he directed them to the room to put him in, and then he talked over what had happened with Bry and Mary before they left.

They deposited the Special Forces platoons at Fort Bragg a little over two and a half hours after they'd left Maryland, and then it took them about forty minutes to get back to Quixote House from there.

* * *

Chuck and Sarah looked up as they walked in, and his mother hugged and kissed both of them before they sat down to talk. Looking at Chuck she said.

"Your extraction program worked, and so did everything else you did, but we're not out of the woods yet, he worked out what he'd been, and what he'd probably done, for the last twenty years and he fell apart, we tranqed him on the transport and left him with Dr Dreyfus, hopefully the doctor will have an easier time straightening out Hartley"

Chuck interjected at that point with "Harvey" and his mother nodded.

"Hopefully the doctor will have an easier time straightening out Harvey than he will with your father."

Chuck nodded, but didn't look too happy about the idea.

With that, Mary and Bry stood up and wished them goodnight and Mary kissed them both again before they left to head down the stairs.


	28. Picking Up The Pieces

**Usual disclaimers, no rights to any characters portrayed, and this wouldn't happen in a normal world.**

* * *

The clean-up from the Volkoff take down took up a fair bit of the team's focus for a couple of months after the operation was completed. One thing that was coming out of the stories that were going around while they were doing that, though, was about Volkoff's remaining lieutenants all hunting for a young woman in England, someone called Vivian McArthur.

There were no leads that they could find as to who she actually was, all they could dig up was that Alexei Volkoff had been supporting her for years, even though she was just over twenty. If he'd only just started supporting her, it may have been feasible that she was his much younger mistress, but he'd been supporting her as far back as when she was fourteen or fifteen at least, if not younger, and they were really hoping not to find out that he'd become so debauched as Volkoff that he'd been maintaining a mistress who was little more than a child when he was in his late forties.

Even with all the work that he had on, none of the others had access to a fraction of the Volkoff intel on tap that Chuck did, so he and Mary took one of the Valkyrie Liners and headed to England to get to the bottom of this, with Mei and Vincent for support.

* * *

On the way over, Mary was obviously conflicted about something, so Chuck eventually asked her what it was. Mary mulled it over a little more and then said. "We have to go to Somerset while we're over there."

Chuck looked at her "Why do we need to do that?"

"We have to tell Dot that we've got Hartley back."

"You need to get used to calling him Harvey, but who's Dot?"

"Dorothy Winterbottom, Hartley's mother."

"What?"

"She's still living in the house that Harley grew up in in Somerset. We've have been keeping an eye on her for the past twenty years to make sure that she was OK, but she's been torn up, worrying about what happened to him the entire time."

"Well, it was more worrying about why we hadn't fixed him and brought him home that what happened to him, as I explained to her back then what I could about what happened to him."

"Anyway, now that we, or more to the point you, have finally found a way to get that thing out of his head and Dr Dreyfus is working on getting him through his issues about what he did as Volkoff, it's time Dot found out that he's finally been rescued, and her son is back."

"Why are we just hearing about Dot now? Why the Hell didn't you and Dad tell us about her ages ago, or at least as soon as we started the operation to get him back?"

Mary looked uncomfortable. "Your father didn't want the authorities to find out about her."

"So you just left the woman hanging out there as a potential target because Dad's a paranoid idiot who doesn't even trust his own family? That's nice Mom, real nice! You need to make a decision, now, you can keep going along with all of his crazy, stupid conspiracy theories, or you can work with us to try and fix what's actually going wrong."

"I shouldn't need to say this, but obviously I do, if you two don't stop shutting us out and work with us like you're supposed to be doing, you're both leaving, I won't let the two of you put the rest of the family at risk any more, do you understand?"

Chuck's eyes bored into her until she drew a breath and nodded "Yes, I understand, I can't guarantee what your father will do but I promise that I'll keep the family in the loop on anything and everything I find out from now on."

Chuck nodded at that. "OK, but we need to find out why Volkoff's lieutenants are hunting Vivian McArthur first, she's the one who already has people actively looking for her, so she's the one who's at risk here and now."

Mary nodded, yes, of course they needed to get to this young woman before the other side did.

* * *

It only took them less than two hours to get to England in the Valkyrie, and after using the instruments to scan the surface carefully to pick out the best landing location, Chuck put it down quickly and quietly with his usual flair (cut the engines and pull it up into a stall, only cutting in the lift fans only at the last second to cushion the landing and put it down softly).

They were carrying one of the Novatech stealth minivans locked down on the ramp in the rear of the cabin, so as soon as he'd landed the Valkyrie, Chuck punched in the commands to lower the ramp, disengage the locks and have the van drive itself down off the ramp.

All of them followed the van down the ramp and Chuck sent the command for the ramp to close up as they piled into the van. After that, he set the minivan's skin to display the pattern of dark green paint with tinted windows, and they drove up to the front door of the main house.

They were a little surprised that Vivian McArthur answered the door herself when Chuck and Mary rang the bell (Mei and Vincent stayed in the van, using the cameras and drones to watch the area), didn't she had staff for that? And they were even more surprised that for someone in Volkoff's world, Vivian was remarkably trusting, just accepting their Interpol IDs at face value and letting them in (well, they were valid, just like the FBI IDs that most of the family had, but she didn't even try to check and confirm that they were before she let them in.)

After giving her some background on the the fact that they were there because of reports that were circulating that a number of people who had been part of Volkoff Industries before it went under were looking for her, Chuck just came out and asked whether she knew who Alexei Volkoff was (thinking that if she had been his teenage mistress, she hadn't done anything wrong, and she would need to be protected).

Neither Chuck nor Mary were expecting Vivian's response, though. "Of course I do, he was my father."

Chuck just stared at her. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm bloody sure, do you want to see my birth certificate? Would that be enough to satisfy you?"

"If you don't mind, yes please?"

Vivian looked at him in disbelief that he'd actually ask to see it, then jumped up and stormed off to get the paperwork.

As soon as she was out of the room, Chuck and Mary started talking, trying to discuss this before she got back.

"How could you not know that Volkoff had a daughter? You were his right hand for over two and half years, and from what you, Aunt D and Uncle Bry told me, you were all but joined at the hip!"

"I don't know! She must have been conceived before I went over there to get him out, but he never said anything about having a daughter!"

"Perhaps you should be telling me how you know my father Agent Bartek! What did you do for him for two and a half years to be joined at the hip, and what were you getting him out of?"

Chuck and Mary quickly turned to see Vivian standing in the doorway, obviously she'd taken far less time than they thought to get the paperwork. When neither of them spoke, Vivian stepped forward and threw the folder in her hand on the coffee table. As Chuck reached for the folder, Mary gently asked her.

"Please sit down Vivian, you're right, we have a lot to tell you."

Chuck quickly scanned through the documents in the folder, loading the image of each page into the Intersect in a second or two with the Intersect's learning module as he flicked through the papers, and then pushed the folder away as he turned back to Vivian. When he did so, Mary went through the folder doing the same, nowhere near as quickly as Chuck, but it was still incredibly fast by normal people's standards.

"I'm sorry Vivian, but I do need to ask you one more question, what have you heard about your father, and what he's done?"

"They used to tell me that he was an international business tycoon who was always busy flying all over the world, but from what I've been seeing on the news lately, he was a monster who had god knows how many people killed for his amusement."

Chuck looked at her for about thirty seconds, and then said "I'm afraid that the recent news is more accurate about Alexei Volkoff, but that's NOT who your father really is."

"What do you mean, you're not making any sense, Alexei Volkoff is my father, you've seen my paperwork."

"Chuck, it may be better if I handle this."

Chuck nodded to Mary, and she started talking. "Vivian what we're about to tell you will sound impossible, but please hear us out, I can assure you that it's all true."

Vivian nodded hesitantly and Mary continued, as Chuck brought up things on the laptop they'd brought with them. "Your father was a scientist, he worked with my husband, Chuck's father." At that Vivian's head whipped around to stare at Chuck, and then compare the two carefully before returning her attention to Mary when she was convinced that they were indeed mother and son.

"Your father was, is, brilliant, and he was working with Stephen, my husband, on a project to encode information and load it into the human brain, along with the code to make use of that information."

Vivian was looking very sceptical, but continued to listen.

"About twenty one years ago, the government official that your father and Stephen worked for talked your father into loading an experimental program that imprinted a different personality over the host's own persona."

Vivian cut in at that point to say that what she was talking about was impossible, so Chuck replied "No, it's not, Vivian, watch this", starting a video and turning the laptop around to face her as it played and showing her which keys to use to skip the video forward or back.

The video was in two parts, the first part showed the original demonstration (using Hartley as the subject) that had been given to Graham and other CIA officials before Chuck was born. It showed Hartley load the Agent X program and become the character that Volkoff was supposed to be, an arrogant, bombastic Russian, and then after about twenty minutes elapsed time, it showed him stop, shake himself, and ask whether the test had worked?

The second part showed when Hartley loaded the version of the Agent X program that Roark had sabotaged, and it was quite obvious that the character that he became once the program was loaded was far more violent, dangerous and evil than the first character.

Vivian went back and forth through the video, watching the changes and trying to convince herself that this was nothing but a trick, but what she was doing was, in fact, convincing herself that it WAS real.

Once Vivian had watched the videos, Mary took up the story again, explaining that the second character was a lot worse than the first, because someone on their team had been paid off to interfere with it before her father loaded it.

She also told Vivian how she and Stephen had tried to get the operation terminated to extract her father when they saw what it had done to him, but were overruled. She didn't really expect the young woman to believe her, but there wasn't much that she could do about that.

After that she tried to go through the story without getting too emotional, telling her how she'd gone in five months after her father so that she'd be in place to extract him when he came out of the Agent X program, only to find that the program didn't terminate when it was supposed to.

Mary told Vivian how she'd tried all the triggers that they'd set up to make the program terminate and how NONE of them had worked, so she'd been getting ready to run, but before she could, she was grabbed by Volkoff's men because the CIA had told him she was a CIA agent in an attempt to get him to kill her.

"This is where we get back to the questions you asked when you came back into the room, because to make it easier for me to get close to your father when the program terminated, he and Stephen coded a mild attraction for me into the Volkoff persona, just enough to make him like me and like having me around, but intentionally or otherwise, Roark interfered with that, and it had turned into an outright obsession for me."

"That was the only thing that stopped Alexei Volkoff having me killed when his men dragged me back, because his obsession for me made him believe me when I told him I'd turned and wanted to stay with him. I became his right hand and he'd hardly let me out of his sight."

Vivian looked horrified at that. "So you were his.."

"NO! Sorry, no, luckily for me, when Roark screwed up the coding in that area, he must have done something that let a little bit of your father's real character peek through, so Volkoff was a romantic who kept trying to woo me, but he never tried to force himself on me."

"He DID have his people investigate me, though, and when they found out about my husband and children, thanks to the CIA giving them up to him, he held their safety over my head to make me stay with him."

"Anyway, my husband did some crazy and desperate things to try and get the project that your father had been working on with him wound up, but it wasn't going anywhere quickly, so after another two years, the one they reported to got tired of waiting for Stephen to sign off on testing of the program and made others on the team start human testing before it was safe."

"This wasn't the version that your father loaded, that was just a persona overlaid over his own, this one was meant to load all sorts of information into people so that they could access it on demand in the field, and there were only ever two people who'd ever managed to load that version without either dying horribly, or having their brains burned out."

"The new test subjects fared exactly like the previous ones had, they either died, or were brain dead, and when he found out about the testing my husband flipped out and disappeared. My friends found him and put him in a private facility down in L.A. under an assumed name, and then they took the chance to grab my children and relocate them with new identifies, too."

"The thing was, once my husband and children had all disappeared from Palo Alto and were far away from there under new identities, they were safe from Volkoff, so I escaped so that I could get back to the U.S.A. as well. I had to hide under a new identity too, but it was still far better than what I'd been doing for Volkoff."

"You mean my father?"

"No, your father is a good man, we'll show you just what your father is soon, but we need you to listen now, VOLKOFF was a monster, but that was someone totally separate from your father."

"Anyway, Stephen recovered to a degree but he was never what he was after that, so while he spent twenty years trying to come up with something that could get Volkoff out of your father's head, he never managed to do it, that took someone better, actually it took my boy here."

"Mom!" The way that Chuck was blushing was the first thing that had managed to bring a smile to Vivian's face since this had started.

"So Chuck created the program to get Agent X out of your father's head, and then planned and executed the operation to ensure the downfall of Volkoff Industries around the world, so that we could get into Volkoff's Moscow headquarters and capture him. When we had him I put the device that Chuck had supplied for the job onto him and ran the program to extract Volkoff."

"Your father came to, as himself, on the way back and we told him the story of what had happened, trying NOT to tell him much about what Volkoff had done until we got him back to where we could get him help to get him through that, but as I said, your father is brilliant, and this is what happened."

She waved to Chuck and he started the video of what had happened on the plane, starting out when Hartley said "Twenty years? I was something WORSE than that character we created for twenty years? My god Mary, what did I DO?", and finishing when Bry said "Yes Lieutenant, it was kinder to do it that way, thank you. Can you get the medics to ensure that he stays sedated for the rest of the flight, please?"

Vivian was crying after she watched that, and Mary put her arm around her, telling her. "We have him with one of the best psychiatrists we know at the moment to help him get through that, it won't be easy, but I assure you we'll do everything we can to get him past it."

"But the one we're worried about now is you, Chuck knows more about this than I do, so I'll hand it back to him to explain."

Chuck looked at Vivian, sitting there crying, and asked. "Would you like to take a break?" But she shook her head and said "No, thank you but we need to get through this, don't we?" He nodded at that.

"We knew that Volkoff's lieutenants were after you, but we didn't know why until you told us who you are. So, what they're obviously trying to do is get control of you so that they can use you, as the heir apparent, to get control of Volkoff Industries."

"We estimate that we wiped out eighty to ninety percent of the organisation, but there still could be as much as a quarter of a billion dollars of Volkoff's assets left, and that makes you a very valuable commodity to them."

The thought of that obviously terrified Vivian, but he reached out to squeeze her hand with a smile.

"Which brings us to your options, and what we need to ask you. How attached are you to our life here?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, could you give up this house, your friends, you career and everything else you have here and start over again?"

"You mean, leave EVERYTHING behind?"

"No, no, I mean your life here, could you start again in another country with a new name and never come back, because it may not ever be safe to come back as Vivian McArthur. Do you have anyone in your life, and if you do, would they be prepared to run with you?"

She shook her head "No, the last person who really cared for me was my mother, and she died in a car accident when I was twelve, the people that my father, I mean Alexei Volkoff, had keeping an eye on me always made sure that I was separated from anyone that I got close to, so there's nothing to keep me here."

"How long do you think it would take to pack everything you want to take with you?"

"You mean, to leave forever, tonight?" Chuck nodded. "I don't know, a couple of hours? Maybe less if I had some help?"

"Are you ready to leave, and start over in the States? We'll help you as much as we can, and that way you can be reunited with your real father?"

She nodded "There's nothing left for me here, so yes."

Chuck smiled and said "OK then", he keyed his mic. "Mei, could you come in, please, to give Vivian and Mom a hand to pack Vivian's things?" Getting "I will be in in five" as a reply.

"OK, I'll go and bring the Valkyrie up here so that we can load it up easier, Mom, if you and Mei can help Vivian, we can head to Dot's when we're done here."

With that he walked out, letting Mei in as he did so.

Vivian turned to Mary "What's a Valkyrie, and who's Dot?"

"The Valkyrie is our plane, and, you're not alone Vivian, Dot is your grandmother, Dorothy Winterbottom. Oh Hell, we never told you your father's real name was, did we? It's Hartley Winterbottom, although his new identity is Harvey Winters now, to prevent anyone finding him."

"Your grandmother has been agonising over what happened to your father for the past twenty years, and I wanted to go and tell her that we've finally got Hartley back, but as Chuck pointed out, we had to come for you first as you were in more immediate danger."

Vivian looked dazed at that, but greeted Mei when she came in and led the way to her rooms to start with clothes and knick-knacks there, before she selected the other things that she wanted to take from elsewhere around the house.

They heard noise outside the windows, but looking out Vivian couldn't see anything until the ramp lowered and suddenly she was looking into something that looked as big as a small airliner inside. Chuck came hurrying down the ramp to start carting things into the Valkyrie, as Vincent was still monitoring the area from the Minivan.

As projected, everything was loaded and they were ready to take off a bit over an hour later. Chuck did another sweep through the house with Vivian, pointing out things and asking her whether she wanted to take them, she did decide to grab a few more things, but generally she'd gotten what she really wanted on the first sweep (though she had forgotten what was in the safe until he reminded her).

* * *

When they left Vivian's estate, it was only a short flight across to Somerset, and once again, Chuck and Mary went up, while Mei and Vincent monitored from the Valkyrie, though they took Vivian with them this time.

When Dot came to the door, Mary smiled and said "Hello Dot." Dot stared at her, trying to work out who she was at first, and then her eyes widened "Mary, Mary Bartowski, is that you?" After they'd had their hugs, Dot turned to the other two, looking up at Chuck (who was over a foot taller than her) and asking "And who's this handsome young man?"

Mary smiled, "This is Charles, my baby boy."

Chuck glowered at her for that, but Dot smiled up him, "Yes, I can see Stephen in him" before turning to Vivian and looking confused "This lovely girl can't be Eleanor, she's much too young, you never told me you had another daughter Mary?"

Mary put her arm around her "No Dot, she isn't my daughter, this is your granddaughter, Vivian"

Dot almost collapsed, "Granddaughter? What do you mean? I don't have a granddaughter?"

Mary held her tight "She's Hartley's daughter Dot, and I have good news, we have Hartley back!"

Dot looked at her in a stunned state, with tears streaming from her eyes, and then she turned to Vivian and took a couple of unsteady steps towards her. Vivian came forward to meet her and they threw their arms around each other and cried for a few minutes.

When they'd settled down a little, they all went inside and Mary filled Dot in on what had happened, but it was a much shorter story this time than what they told Vivian, as Stephen and Mary had kept in contact with Dot when they could over the years. That meant that she only really needed to hear the story of how they'd extracted the program from Hartley's head and got him out of Volkoff Industries, and hence back to the States.

When Mary had finished telling her the story, Mary looked art Dot and asked. "So, are you ready to leave everything here behind for good and come with us to America?"

She wasn't at all surprised by the response she got "What do you bloody well think? Why would I stay here if my son and my beautiful granddaughter are in America, if everything I've been waiting for for the past twenty years is over there, that's where I'll bloody well be too!"

Everyone laughed at that, and once again Chuck got Mei to come in and help Dot, Mary and Vivian pack, while Chuck and Vincent carried everything out to the Valkyrie, organising it and securing it as they went.

Once the decision had been made, it took less than an hour and a half to get everything stowed away, and they did a final sweep, just at they had at Vivian's, but Dot had even less things to add to the pile than Vivian had had. With that, they locked up the house and they were away.

A couple of hours later, they were coming in to land at their property back in the hills up near Cajun Junction. They'd had the two women pack whatever they expected to need over the next week or so into a few bags, so that when they landed, all they needed to grab were those bags as they transferred to the waiting Wraith Van to head back to Quixote House.

When they got in, Chuck and Vincent carried their bags down to Mary's apartment (as that was what it was at the moment) and bid them goodnight, as all Chuck wanted to do at the moment was see Sarah and the twins, though he expected that the twins at least would be asleep.

* * *

Sure enough, the twins were asleep, so Chuck kissed them as they slept and went to bed with Sarah, they could talk as well curled up in bed in each other's arms as they could sitting up at the table.

It didn't take too long to fill her in on the two surprises of the trip, that the mystery woman wasn't Volkoff's teen mistress, she was his daughter, and that Stephen and Mary had known all along about Hartley's mother, but hadn't felt any compunction to share that information with the rest of them.

Sarah didn't need to be the brilliant spy that she was to see how much THAT pissed Chuck off, the fact that they were still playing games and keeping things from the family, even though they expected the rest of them to fix all their issues. There was little doubt that this would blow up in their faces, only how long it would take to do so.

* * *

The next day, they set up a video conference with Dr Dreyfus to raise the question of whether he believed that it would be likely to help, or hinder, Harvey's progress to see his mother and daughter.

That discussion didn't go quite the way that they expected, they got a yes AND no on how helpful it could be, because at this point he wasn't at all sure whether finding out that he had a daughter would override being forced to face what Alexei Volkoff had done, but that wasn't the big surprise in the discussion.

The big surprise was that Dr Dreyfus proposed that he retire, refer all his other patients off to other psychiatrists and move to the west coast with his two current high priority patients (Stephen and Harvey). If they did that, that could mean that they'd have have the rest of the family close enough to assist in their recovery process.

All of them had had sessions with Dr Dreyfus to deal with residual issues to some level, Sarah, Carina, Chuck, Leslie, Mary, Casey and Zondra (and of course Stephen and Hartley/Harvey) had the most severe issues that needed to be addressed, but they had ALL had some issues that he'd helped them with.

Even the next generation hadn't been safe from problems. Josie had had to deal with her parents giving her up to pursue their careers. Kim still had serious problems after being taken by white slavers in Paris when she was seventeen, and on top of that having her best friend die after she was taken by the same slavers. Alex was still coming to terms with the fact that HER father had faked his own death and walked away before she was even born.

Even Charlotte, Carla and Carolina had to deal with the fact that they were all conceived when Chuck slept with three sisters in one weekend (when all four of them were pre-teens), and having to keep that secret from everyone else they knew was hard. On top of that there was the irritating matter of just about all of their girlfriends and their mothers having the hots for their father (Ellie helped them a little with that angle when she told them the issues she'd had with HER girlfriends always trying to sleep with her little brother).

The only ones in the family who hadn't had any sessions with Dr Dreyfus as yet were Vivian and Dot, and while Dot may not need help (she was tough as nails), Vivian would. It would be especially hard on her when she found out that her mother's death hadn't been an accident as she'd been told. Volkoff had had her mother killed because in his paranoia he'd thought that her she would try and keep Vivian away from him, and he'd had big plans to make his daughter into his heir.

The information about Vivian's mother had came out of some of the records that Chuck, Jeff and Anna had dug out of the Volkoff systems

In view of all this, there was a general consensus of agreement with Dr Dreyfus's proposal, the only question being how they would go about it. There wasn't really room for any more people to move into Quixote House, and Stephen and "Harvey" would be more likely to recover in a quieter, more relaxed environment than the bustle of Quixote House where they were running a military command, two intelligence groups, and a business (and the current friction between Stephen and Ellie and Chuck meant that it would be better if Stephen was elsewhere as a general rule), so they threw the question out for suggestions.

It was actually Vivian who came up with the suggestion that seemed perfect for what they wanted. Vivian was going to go wherever her father and grandmother went, there was no question of that, but at twenty she was obviously too young to retire. That led to her suggestion, that they find a small scale horse breeding farm that she could run as a marginally profitable business, that had enough accommodation for whoever wanted to live there.

If and when they'd recovered enough, if they had the interest in continuing their work, they'd need the buildings to put in labs for Stephen and her father to work at the farm, but given the nature of farms like that, that wasn't likely to be a problem. Just as with Dr Dreyfus's proposal, there was a general agreement with Vivian's suggestion, so they moved on to a discussion about who was inclined to move out with them.

Chuck and Ellie weren't too surprised, or upset, when their mother elected to go with their father, and it was no more of a surprise when Aunt D and Roan put their hands up, too. Leslie nominated to stay, with Carina, but pointed out that when Stephen and Harvey took up tools again (as they fully expected that they would), he'd need to commute to where they were to work with them.

It was actually Mary who jumped in to say that that wouldn't be an issue, as she'd have to come back to Quixote House most days to work with Operations Command and the Special Projects Group anyway (both Mary and Mei had been commissioned as Majors (Marines and Air Force respectively) to work with Operations Command, assisting with planning issues).

Having Mary, Roan, and Aunt D staying on the farm would also assist with the security for the others, as that meant that, at night at least, they'd have three ex field agents on-site. Therefore, by salting the staff for the farm with a few more agents who had a side function of being part of the protective detail, and installing as many security features as they could around the property, the others staying at the farm would be protected well enough.

(Even Dot had a function in the security, as she'd been an operative back in her day, too, she'd gotten out of the business to start a family back in the 'sixties, but she just had to brush up on her weapons skills and she could be part of the farm's security detail. They hardly needed to ask whether she was OK with that, considering the weapons that they'd pulled out of her little cottage back in Somerset, but they did anyway, getting the expected answer. "What do you bloody well think, if you don't give me a gun I'll use me own!")

So, now that they knew how many they had to cater for (IE: Eight, Dr Dreyfus, Harvey, Vivian and Dot, Stephen and Mary and Aunt D and Roan). They also had to cater for others when they spent time down there to work with Dr Dreyfus, or just to catch up with those there. Once they had the criteria, they started looking around Southern California for horse breeding farms on the market that fit the bill.

It didn't take very long to find a very nice property that met all their criteria down near San Diego and they started proceedings to purchase it ASAP. Then, as soon as they had possession of the property, a massive remodelling job was started to add all the security and other features that they insisted on around the other property, and they started making plans to move Dr Dreyfus, Stephen and Harvey across to the West Coast.

There was another piece of work that had to be done before all they moved in, too, they all needed new identities. Harvey was the only one who'd gotten his new ID so far (like Laszlo, he'd had to change his given name because Hartley was too distinctive, Harvey Winters was common enough not to attract attention, but close enough to the original that he'd be able to remember it), so it was the rest's turn now.

Stephen and Mary were going to Stephen and Mary Barton, Vivian and Dot were going to Vivian and Dorothy Winters, Aunt D was going to Diane Beckett, Roan was going to Rowan Monaghan, and Dr Dreyfus was going to Leo Draper.

One subject that had been under discussion quite a bit between Chuck, Ellie and Leo was whether to go through the now standard Bartowski Intersect process with Harvey. One (generally) beneficial side effect that they'd found with the BI was that they could use the learning module to force every memory in their head (conscious or otherwise) to be loaded into the Intersect, so that they could all be accessed via the Intersect.

This had the effect of essentially giving the rest of them the near perfect recall that Chuck, Ellie, Sarah, Carina and Zondra had, and allowed them to data mine all their memories using the Intersect processes, but it was also potentially very traumatic for people like Chuck, Sarah, Carina, Leslie and anyone else who'd had experiences so bad that their minds were protecting them by blocking them out.

Hence the quandary with Harvey, on one hand, they could access everything he knew (as Alexei Volkoff) about Volkoff Industries, and bring the remnants of VI down for good, BUT, there was a good chance that accessing those memories would destroy him.

Chuck and Ellie spent a hell of a lot of time discussing this with Leo, but the closest that they'd got so far to to coming up with an acceptable solution was that Leo was confident that, with Chuck's help, he could put locks on the Volkoff information so that it could only be accessed while under hypnosis, and Harvey could never directly access it himself.

So now they had to sit down with Harvey to get his call on whether the risk was acceptable in his eyes, or not. They did want to load the BI into him, as Leo and Ellie had put him through the full battery of medical and neurological tests and scans as soon as he'd gotten back to the States, and they'd found evidence of a lot of damage that had occurred over the past twenty years that they knew that the BI could fix. But they didn't want to take the risk that loading the BI would unlock the Volkoff memories without any intervention.

 **A/N: Sorry if anyone's** **actually** **been waiting for an update** **on this** **, I've been tied up catching up on some of the older stories, and in particular enjoying the delightful 19** **th** **Century Chuck stories** ( **Steampunk chuckster** ** **'s**** **Chuck Versus the Steampunk Chronicles** **, of course, but also Jimmy 144's Chuck vs the Chuckwagon stories and ninjaVanish's Chuck vs The Frontier) so much that I know what the next story I'm starting is now. ;)**

 **It WILL be a CHARAH story, of course, 'cause Chuck is nothing without CHARAH to me.**

 **Mind you, it could well be so 'out there' that no-one will read it because of the way that he'll be getting the equivalent of the Intersect this time around (think Highlander with other influences thrown in), so we'll see if that goes anywhere.  
**

 **I WILL be continuing with CvN and getting Mr &MrsC and even Different Drum wound up, but I ****tend to** **get distracted by shiny things. You know, ooh, that's purty,** **ooh, what's that?** **;)**


	29. Winters War

**Hey, I'm back in this century, anyone miss me? ;)**

 **Usual disclaimers for the Land of Litigation, no rights to any characters portrayed and the real world's back there somewhere.**

Dot was a hit with the guys from Operations Command, they loved this little old lady who spent as much time as she could gleefully blasting away with the biggest guns she could find (usually) on the urban combat range, and more than one muttered about her being 'the mother I never had' with a suspicious twinkle in their eye.

Vivian also surprised them with how proficient she was with handguns and assault rifles when she was down there with her grandmother getting her certifications. When Dot asked her about this, a frown passed over her face as she started to say "My fath.." before stopping and saying "It was one of the things I was required to learn as I was growing up." Dot nodded and squeezed her hand gently to comfort her. Vivian squeezed back and smiled her thanks.

Some of the comments of the men from OC led to Dot asking questions about Sarah and Chuck, though, so Mary took her and Vivian up to Dulcinea's Boudoir. Sarah let them in, as she was working in there that day. Dot and Vivian found it hard to accept what they were seeing as they looked at Chuck and Sarah's 'wall', even though they knew it was the truth. Dot was more familiar with the military than Vivian was, so she picked up Sarah's rank immediately in the picture of Chuck and Sarah which was taken at the Order of Australia award ceremony. She pointed at the picture as she turned to Sarah and said "You're, a General?"

Sarah nodded "One star only, though, Chuck still outranks me." That made Dot have another look at the photo and take in the two stars on Chuck's uniform, but she noted something else as well, going down to check in their awards sections of the wall (Dot was no fool) before turning back to say "And you're a Dame Commander of the Order of Bath, while he's a Knight Commander? They're not honorary titles, how did that happen?"

Sarah came forward to tap her Australian citizenship certificate. "There was an incident, which we can't talk about, but a few nations, including the United Kingdom and Australia, were grateful, we were awarded the British, French and German honours, and then a few months later we were called back and awarded the Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia. Then they advised us that we both now held joint United States and Australian citizenship, so the honorary part of that no longer applied, and we were handed new certificates to that effect. We were still trying to get our heads around that when the British ambassador came forward with the new certificates for our KCB and DCB and advised that the honorary portion of the Knight Commander and Dame Commander no longer applied, either, and we had the right to use Sir and Dame. So that's how that happened."

Dot nodded, but she'd noted many more things when she looked at their awards sections of the wall, and she'd gone back for a closer look. She turned to Sarah, as she pointed to this part of the wall and whispered "These, are all real?"

Sarah looked at the wall, but before she could answer, the screen nearby lit up with Aunt D. "Yes Dot, they're all real, and there should be more than that but there were more than a few incidents that we couldn't admit happened, so they were robbed of their due on those."

"By the way Sarah, we've just received word that you and Chuck are being requested to fly to England for more award ceremonies for the two of you, and Ellie and Colonel Casey, in two weeks, it's partly to do with the incidents that your KCB and DCB came from, but more to do with those other incidents that came out of that. They've recognised that your efforts have not only saved the structure of our country, but you've saved their's as well. It looks like you will be picking up new titles."

As Dot had already proven, she was no fool, and her eyes widened "Do you mean?"

Aunt D smiled as she nodded "I always knew she was a real lady. Now I shouldn't need to say this, but I will, I'll be coming with you to those award ceremonies Sarah!" With that she nodded and cut the link.

The others were looking at Dot, waiting for an explanation, though Vivian obviously had an idea of what was going on.

Dot waved at the wall and started "According to this, you're already General and Admiral, both of you are Doctor, Chuck's Sir and you're Dame, so there's really only one way for the United Kingdom to give you more titles, and Diane confirmed it. She also said that there will be ceremonies for the two of you, so you're both getting peerages, which will make you Lady Carmichael, and Chuck, Lord Carmichael. I wish I could know what the hell you two could have done to save the structure of both the United States and the United Kingdom, but I never will, will I?"

Sarah shook her head "Probably not, I'm sorry."

With that, they went back to the living room, because Dot for one needed a good stiff drink!

* * *

Sarah signalled to the cameras for Chuck to 'get up here, now!' and she breathed a sigh of relief when the lift was called about thirty seconds later. When Chuck stepped out of the elevator and Dot greeted him with "Oh, hello Admiral Carmichael, how are you M'lord?", he had an idea of what some of this may be about, but was confused by her ending, so he just smiled at her.

Chuck came over to kiss Sarah, and pick up and give Charlie and Sammie a kiss and a hug, then excused himself to go get changed out of his suit. The look that Sarah was giving him was saying 'be quick!', so he kissed her again before he ducked off to the master bedroom, shucking his coat and tie as he went.

Less than ten minutes later, he was back, dressed in a T-shirt, jeans and his favourite Chucks. He scooped up Charlie again, giving her another kiss as he could never resist this miniature representation of the centre of his world. Sarah shook her head at him, but she was sitting on the couch with Sammie in her lap, so she was no better.

Chuck settled onto the couch beside her with Charlie in his lap, and looking from one to the other, he asked, "So, what's happening?"

Sarah glanced at the others and said "Mary brought Dot and Vivian up to see our wall in the Boudoir, and Dot was a little surprised with the awards we had (Dot snorted at that), so when Aunt D popped up to answer her question about whether they were real, we have to talk to about that by the way, I thought she agreed that she wasn't keeping an eye on us any more?"

She shook her head and continued "Anyway, after she answered Dot's question, Aunt D told me that they just got word through that the British want us over there in two weeks for more award ceremonies, and Dot thinks that that means that they're giving us peerages."

Dot broke in there "I don't think Sarah, I know, that's the only thing that fits what Diane said!" She turned to Vivian "Tell them dear."

Vivian obviously didn't want to be in the middle of this, but she nodded "There didn't seem to be any question that that was what General Beckman was saying, as Grandma said, as far as I can see the only way for the British government to give the two of you more salutations, well she said titles but she meant salutations, is to give you peerages, and she confirmed that Sarah's would be Lady, so the only question is the title. The most obvious titles would be Baron and Baroness, but after what we saw and heard in there (nodding at the Boudoir) I wouldn't be surprised if it was higher, as Lord and Lady can apply to Baron, Viscount, Earl or Marquess. I, for one, will be quite interested in seeing what you are awarded."

Chuck and Sarah looked at each other, this had stopped being funny, as these two women seemed to have no doubt at all in their minds about what would happen. They put Charlie and Sammie down and told them to go to Grandma (Emma was Nana) before heading into Dulcinea's Boudoir to call Aunt D. When the link came up, Chuck launched straight into it "Tell us about these awards in England Aunt D!"

* * *

She looked at him "Well hello to you too Chuck." She sighed then "I take it my revealing things the way I did caused problems?" Chuck and Sarah nodded "I'm sorry, as I said, word had just come through, and quite frankly I was excited about it, that was why I initiated the link, to tell you about it, but I got sidetracked answering Dot."

Chuck nodded, but said "They're out there now, speculating whether it's Baronies, or something higher." They could see from her expression that they were something higher "The United Kingdom were very aware of the fact that the plans that you thwarted would have almost certainly destroyed their country. When you exposed their deputy prime minister and their top politicians and intelligence and military people before they could pull off that coup that they were ready to trigger, thwarted their plan to eliminate the royal family, and were instrumental in dismantling the entire thing without the public's knowledge, you saved their nation."

"They informed us that this was the first time their government has ever been united on something like this, and they had the Queen's complete agreement on the fact that they wanted to impress upon you how grateful Great Britain was. So Chuck, you will be the Marquess of Crewe, Viscount Cave and Baron of Barloch and Sarah, you will be the Countess of Avon, Viscountess Eden and Baroness of Ardwick. These are being awarded as hereditary titles under your Australian citizenship and they've included in the letters patent for your titles, Sarah, that the precedence is for them to be inherited by your daughters. Only the Baronies will be made public, well, by that, the other titles will be kept secret."

She smiled at something that had been said "They wanted to stress that they didn't wish to imply that your role was any less important Sarah, but as a woman, the Queen had commented that while it's one level lower, she'd prefer the title of Countess over Marchioness, and they took what she said on as a suggestion as they didn't think that it would offend you, were they correct in that?"

She didn't get any response from Sarah, as she and Chuck were just sitting there, staring at the screen, the idea of being Baron and Baroness was bizarre enough for them, but this was too much to comprehend!

Aunt D had to call her name a couple of times to get her to come back enough to respond, and when she was back, Aunt D repeated the question, this time getting a "No, of course not" from her. While she had their attention, she reminded them that they couldn't repeat this to anyone who wasn't directly involved until after the awards had been granted and they nodded. Aunt D accepted that as the best she was going to get out of them at the moment, but she remembered something else at that point "You are also both being awarded the George Cross for your actions in this, which will add to your medal count, and Ellie and Colonel Casey are being made honorary members of the Order of Merit in the military grouping."

As she was winding things up with them, she sent a text to Mary, Emma and Casey to advise them of the situation and request that they work together to keep a lid on this until after the awards. Mary read this and collected Dot and Vivian to take them downstairs as soon as Chuck and Sarah came out of Dulcinea's Boudoir.

* * *

Neither Chuck or Sarah got much work done that night, and they were distracted as they were bathing the twins, to the point that they got drenched when Charlie splashed them because they weren't paying attention to her. With that, bath time was over and she and Sammie were quickly dried off, in their pyjamas and put to bed in no time. Chuck sang them to sleep, as he usually did, and that turned out to be good for all of them, as it helped calm Chuck and Sarah, too (ever since the first time she caught him singing the twins to sleep over two years ago, Sarah had tried to be there when he did, because she found it as enchanting as their children did).

Once the twins were asleep, Chuck took Sarah back to the master bedroom and they lay on the bed, discussing this latest news and trying to get their heads around it. Getting the KCB and DCB had been enough to pull the rug out from under them, and getting Baronies and the George Crosses would have been more than they'd ever expect, but the other, they just didn't know how to handle that.

The next day, they sat down in Chuck's office in Operations Command and talked about it with Ellie, Casey, Bry, Carina, Zondra, Emma and Mary, but the general consensus was that they were getting honoured appropriately for saving the country. When Chuck argued that the rest of them should be honoured as well, Ellie countered with the fact that only he and Sarah had the Commonwealth citizenship which allowed them to receive most of these honours, and she and Casey were getting the Order of Merit. Chuck ended up accepting defeat, because Ellie, Sarah and Charlie were the only people in the whole world who he couldn't win an argument with.

Ellie managed to inject a note of levity into the conversation, though, when she said "For the love of God, PLEASE don't tell Charlie about this, because she'll insist that we all call her Lady Carmichael all the time!" The laughter was all the louder because they knew that Ellie was right about that.

The discussion helped them come to an acceptance of this, and they got back to work. The only change that the awards made necessary was that they had to move any meetings for that day, and they were going to have to fly out the previous night to deal with the eight hour time difference. Of course they were made to wear their full uniforms and medals for the George Cross and Order of Merit presentations, and discussions between the President and DNI and their equivalents resulted in that requirement being extended to the ceremonies for the peerages as well.

Of course, nothing in their world could be simple, and Aunt D called later that day to advise them that they had to come to Washington next week for more ceremonies, but primarily for the others this time. The American government and military had decided when they were advised of the British honours that were being awarded to Chuck, Sarah, Ellie and Casey that they had to show that they were recognising this remarkable group who'd effectively saved the free world (again) at least as much. To that end, they'd rushed through Ellie, Casey and Bry's promotions to one star flag ranks which had been in the works (as well as bumping Sarah to two stars and Chuck to three stars to maintain the hierarchy) and promoted Emma, Jeff, Anna and Greg to USN Captains, Mary to a USMC Colonel, Vincent to USA Colonel, Mei-Ling to USAF Colonel, Rick to USA Lieutenant Colonel and Vicky to USAF Lieutenant Colonel. As well as this, Chuck, Sarah, Ellie, Emma, Casey, Bry, Carina, Zondra, and Operations Command as a unit, were all being awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, along with a few more medals.

Of course, this meant that they had to clear another day's schedule, and as usual, they had to send over uniform jackets for those being promoted to allow them to be prepared for the show, and they had new mini dress whites/dress blues styled outfits made up for Sammie and Charlie.

* * *

When the day came, they flew into Washington, and as had become the norm, the ceremonies were in the Oval office with all the usual suspects present, though DCI Hanson was added to the list, as he was all but part of the family now, and there were also a few new appointees who hadn't seen the Operations Command show before.

At the dinner after the promotions and the award ceremonies were done, Aunt D was standing with Bry, Mary, Emma and Ellie, discussing Chuck and Sarah, who were across the room, talking to the President "It's hard to believe that that adorable little boy I held the day he was born now outranks me!" Bry laughed "What are you complaining about Diane? He's been my boss since he was fourteen!"

That led to everyone laughing, which caught the attention of the newcomers, sitting at a table with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others, and they asked "What units have these people came from, they all seem to know each other?"

The old hands laughed and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said "One unit, Operations Command!" He pointed at Chuck, who was holding Charlie on his hip as he talked to the President "Navy Vice Admiral Carmichael is their Commander" then Sarah, beside him with Sammie "Air Force Major General Carmichael is the Deputy Commander, and Commander of their Operations Division, she has Marine Brigadier General Casey, Army Brigadier General Mills, Marine Colonel Barton, Navy Captains Miller, Rizzo and Roberts, Army Colonel Payne, Air Force Colonel Chiang and Army Lieutenant Colonel Noble under her" (pointing to each in turn before pointing to Ellie) "Navy Rear Admiral Lower Half Charlemagne is the Commander of their Information Dominance Division, she has Navy Captains Burdon, Barnes and Wu, and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Dunwoody under her."

After he'd pointed to Emma, Jeff, Anna and Vicky he looked around, and seeing no-one else significant (well, there was something significant about Josie and Alex, but he wasn't about to share that with these men) said "There's a passel of Army, Marine and Air Force Majors on down to Sergeants and Navy Lieutenant Commanders on down to Petty Officers under them, but these are the senior officers of Operations Command."

"Senior? There's one oh nine, one oh eight, three oh sevens, nine oh sixes and two oh fives from what you just told us, that's five flag officers and eleven senior officers, with nearly all of them at oh six or above, just how big is this command? There's enough brass in there to handle a major multi-service sector of the military!"

"These senior officers make up about one sixth of the Operations Command group."

"WHAT? Why would they have this much brass for something only the size of a company?"

"They aren't a conventional group, their primary role is to manage major multi-service operations, as you said, they 'handle' major multi-service sectors of the military, but those forces aren't part of their group. They plan and manage the operations, then once they've taken the objective, they hand it over to the regular forces and move on. Where do you think the group got its name?"

The General who was talking shook his head "I never really paid any mind to it, but what are those kids doing here anyway?"

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs shook his head "I would have thought it was obvious, their parents and just about their entire family are here! Admiral Carmichael and General Carmichael are their parents, Captain Burdon is General Carmichael's mother and Colonel Barton is Admiral Carmichael's mother, their grandmothers, Admiral Charlemagne is Admiral Carmichael's sister, their aunt, Captains Miller and Rizzo are General Carmichael's sisters, their other aunts, also, General Mills is the Admirals' Godfather, and General Casey is the twins' Godfather, so it's sort of a family affair in Operations Command. General Beckman is also the Admirals' Godmother."

The man was aghast at this "Why is this being allowed? This is against all the rules of military command!"

"What do you mean, 'allowed'? We had to fight to make this happen, but they've proven us right time and again! These people represent the very best of our military and intelligence minds, they'd all proven themselves separately over their careers before we put them together as Operations Command, and in the past few years they've turned over the way we do things in that space and saved our country, and others', more than once, who do you think took down your predecessors to leave those roles open for you? Them, that's who!"

"In case you're thinking of questioning their right to be wearing those uniforms, take a good look at their decorations, every one of them was earned, and more besides, you may have heard the term 'Hero Central' being tossed about over the last year and a half? (they nodded) this is it, it came out of discussions about them at the last ceremony like this!"

The General shook his head "Why haven't we heard more about them before this then? We've heard the name of Operations Command, but nothing about what they do."

"Because in the Special Forces and Intelligence space where they live, you DON'T talk about your best people, that would just paint a target on their backs! Most of these people have been legends in their fields for at least ten to fifteen years or more. Have you heard of Mowgli, Baloo, Akela, Shanti, Agent Smith, Agent Jones, the Ice Queen, Frost, Piranha, Roscoe or the Lotus?" They nodded, of course they'd heard the legends about most of those names! "They're all in this group!"

"But they're just legends!"

"No, they aren't, they're the names that these people have been using for a long time while they do what they do, a third of them are second generation and started when they were teenagers, for that matter most of those who aren't actually family have been working with them since then, so they're as good as family."

"I suggest you make the effort to learn about the group you're going to be working with! Now excuse me, I haven't seen those kids in nearly a year and a half and I'm not about to miss out on catching up with them!" With that, he left and went to Chuck, beaming when Charlie recognised him and taking her off Chuck to talk to her.

The newcomers remained at the table where the Chairman and the others had left them, most of them letting themselves be dragged along as the outspoken one ranted about the fact that, as a military man, he was appalled by how these people were being allowed to flaunt the traditions of the United States military. None of them really believed what they were being told about how those people had earned their ranks and medals, because in their mindsets of promotion through seniority and traditional engagements using the mass forces of the military, there was no place to accept this concept of enlightened planning and direction of small elite forces overcoming those traditional forces. They were still stuck in the 'it was good enough for my father, so there's no reason to change it' mindset that the military traditionally had.

What this group didn't realise was that, on the other side of the room, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the heads of the Army, Navy and Marines, the Secretary of Defense and the President were discussing THEM and whether they'd need to be replaced with Chuck, Sarah and Casey.

Charlie and Sammie weren't behaving as well as they usually did, and when Sarah found out WHY her two year olds were on tearing about the way they were, she decided that their Aunt Carina was going to get a good talking to afterwards, but this was an important discussion, so she sent the twins off to their grandmothers (much to the Chairman and head of the Navy's dismay, as they were holding them at the time).

With that distraction out of the way, they got down to the matter at hand, not noting the fact that the newcomers were looking at the way that Sarah was nestled into Chuck's side with his arm around her and taking it as proof that what they were saying was correct.

None of those in the discussion was surprised when Chuck argued that these new ones should be given a chance to fit into the new order, after all, it was Chuck, but the consensus was that what the Chairman told them needed to be addressed before it festered, so the Secretary of Defense went to the newcomers' table and curtly told them to follow him, while others collected people required for the upcoming discussion.

* * *

When they walked into the Oval Office with the Secretary of Defense, the newcomers found the President, as expected, but they also found the Vice Admiral and two of the Generals from Operations Command, the Secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force, all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Combatant Commanders of CENTCOM, SOCOM and USSTRATCOM, the Commander of US Cyber Command and Major General Diane Beckman. The President waved them to the seats in front of his desk and began.

"I am given to understand that you don't believe that Operations Command and its officers are a legitimate command in the United States Military?"

The General who had been speaking up before answered him "With all due respect Mr President, no. They aren't military and they have no right to be wearing those uniforms or giving orders to the military!"

Casey leant forward to respond but Chuck stilled him with a slight shake of the head.

The President hit a few buttons to bring a projector and screen down, but when he tried to switch to the projector screen, he couldn't manage. "Oh hell, Chuck, you're the expert at this, can you do this please?"

Chuck said "Not a problem, Mr President" as he stood up, and within thirty seconds had the screen showing the files that he knew the President was after. He pushed the keyboard and mouse back to the President and went back to his seat.

The President said "I hate how easy you make that look when I can't do it." and then turned back to the newcomers saying "Let's see about what you said, shall we?" and started scrolling from the start, showing the dates and locations of Chuck's engagements and operations, with notes on what units they were with, how he'd performed and the promotions and decorations that he'd been recommended for and won in those engagements.

When he'd finished Chuck's, he started on Casey's, then Bry's, Ellie's, Mary's, Sarah's, Carina's, Zondra's, Vincent's and then Greg's, Rick's and Vicky's, finishing with Mei-Ling's, Anna's and Jeff's smaller lists.

The General with the mouth was quiet now, but one of the other Generals asked "I don't understand sir, why were there different names in different services listed for most of these people?"

Aunt D answered that "Because Admiral Carmichael, Admiral Charlemagne, General Casey, General Mills and Captain Barnes have been operating across multiple services and intelligence groups for the past fifteen years or more where required, in intelligence, combat, planning and command functions, with Captain Wu doing the same for over ten years, and General Carmichael, Captains Miller and Rizzo and Colonels Barton, Payne and Chiang have been doing similar functions for at least ten years, a few times that for Colonel Barton, but they mainly started in the intelligence community. Operations Command has come out of a group that's been operating for over seventeen years now, have you heard of the group that used to be known as Alias Smith and Jones?"

Most of the newcomers nodded "The Admirals are Smith and Jones, and Generals Casey and Mills and Captains Barnes and Wu worked with them most of the way back."

The outspoken General piped up again "That's ridiculous, they couldn't have been more than children then!"

She nodded "Admiral Carmichael was thirteen, Admiral Charlemagne was sixteen."

He started to say that that was impossible when the President hit a key to bring up a page of images that he often looked at, a collection of pictures of a fifteen year old Chuck and seventeen year old Ellie on Special Forces training and missions, many with Casey and/or Bry in the background. The SOCOM Commander asked for the laser pointer and highlighted himself in a number of the pictures before turning to the newcomers.

"If you have been in serious action, you would have heard the name Mowgli, and what he's done?"

Again, most of them nodded (not the outspoken one though).

He waved at Chuck "Admiral Carmichael is Mowgli, and John Smith, so before anyone tries to say that he's not military, let's see what you've done to earn your rank, we won't argue medals, as most of you don't have combat medals, but for your information, I was there when he and his sister, and his wife, for that matter, earned some of theirs and I can assure you, they DID earn them."

The outspoken General sniffed at that, and the SOCOM Commander shot an irritated look at the President. A few keystrokes later, the General's record came up on the screen, and as expected, it was a list of administrative commands that went nowhere near actual combat, and his long string of medals were nothing but service awards for doing administrative functions or sitting in a role. The Commander snorted and said "Forgive me Mr President, but why is he here?" The President shook his head, saying "I'm beginning to wonder about that myself" as he looked at the Secretary of Defense, who frowned at the man in question before saying.

"I'm sorry Mr President, I invited the new Combatant Commanders, believing that they should all meet Admiral Carmichael and his team as they'd be working with Operations Command at some stage, I should have considered the fact that Transportation Command may not be relevant to anything to do with Operations Command. This (waving at the screen) appears to show my error, with your leave?"

The President nodded, and the Secretary turned to the man, reminded him of the ramifications of ever discussing anything he'd heard today and dismissed him. The man looked ready to argue, but just said "Yes, sir" and stood to leave, but Casey jumped in to ask for leave to speak. The President nodded and he addressed the man.

"You owe the Admiral and the General an apology! Your precise words were 'They aren't military and they have no right to be wearing those uniforms or giving orders to the military!' Well you've seen the proof that they've earned their right to their uniforms, ranks and medals by shedding blood, sweat and tears for this country and achieving great things through their sacrifice. This country's finest warriors follow their orders without question and the utmost confidence" he looked at the SOCOM Commander and said "I even remember you doing that more than once sir" which got a nod as he said "And I'd do it again if I was in combat and Mowgli gave me an order, because obeying his orders is usually the best way to succeed and come back alive!"

Casey turned back to Northern Command's Commander "You were quick to tell the President that the Admiral and the rest of us have no right to our uniforms or command, you've seen and heard the proof that they DO, and now I'm waiting for you to apologise to them!"

The man bristled and went to respond, not about to be spoken to this way by a new one star General, but the President barked "Quiet!" and brought up the performance records for Transportation Command under this man. The figures were solid, but not inspiring, and the man's performance here had ensured that no-one present had any confidence in him.

The President looked at the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Air Force and Chief of Staff of the Air Force, getting a subtle nod from each in turn. With agreement from all, he turned to the man in question "Do you have anything further you wish to say General?"

"No more than I already have Mr President."

"Very well, General, you are relieved of your command, you have proven that you will hold to your opinions over proven evidence and the testimony of your peers, and we cannot entrust responsibility for a role such as your's to someone who does that."

He turned to the Secretary of Defense "Mr Secretary, would you initiate proceedings to place the Deputy Commander of Transportation Command in the Commander's role, please?"

When the Secretary of Defense replied with "Yes, Mr President" he turned to the Secretary of the Air Force "Mr Secretary, I believe that the question of whether the General is fit to hold a command in the United States Air Force is a matter which requires proper investigation and determination, would you initiate the relevant proceedings, please?"

The Secretary of the Air Force nodded and said "Yes, Mr President."

At that the General spat out "You won't get away with this! I have my rights! I'll get this overturned, see what the people say when they hear that you're trying to dismiss a four star general just because I won't pander to your pets!"

The president looked at Aunt D, and she nodded, pulling out her phone. He pressed a button on the desk and two secret Service Agents entered the Oval Office. The President pointed to the General and said "Take this man away and lock him up until the NSA arrive with the proper paperwork to remove him to a suitable site."

When he said that, the General turned to head for the door, but the Secret Service Agent behind him tasered him, so he crumpled to the floor. The President frowned at that and went on "Unfortunate, but probably better, under no circumstances is anyone to see or speak to him until the NSA take him away."

One Agent said "Yes, Mr President" while the other went to the door to request that they bring one of the trolleys used for transporting detainees into the Oval Office. Once the General had been removed, the Secretary of Defense looked at the other commanders.

"Well the General's behaviour leads us to a question that I will require you to answer. Do YOU understand the ramifications if you breach security and repeat or discuss anything that you have heard here today?"

The Commanders were quick to respond with "Yes, Sir!"s

He nodded "Now, with that understood, are there any clarifications or further information that you would like in regard to Operations Command and its officers? As I said earlier, I invited you here today to meet their officers and get an understanding of how they operate, as you will invariably be working with them in the future" He paused and looked at the door "Except possibly Transportation, I didn't think that through."

Chuck responded "No, Mr Secretary, we do work with them, as they transport supplies and personnel to and from operations." The Secretary nodded and gave him a smile of thanks before he turned back to the Commanders.

When none of them said anything, he went on "The Admiral and Generals won't mind valid questions, in my experience they're happy to answer questions to ensure that people understand what's going on and can work better together. General Casey took objection to the unfounded accusations made regarding his fellow officers, and demanded an apology on behalf of them once the General's accusations had been proven to be false. If you don't see General Casey's position on that as being valid, perhaps your best move would be to tender your resignation from your role, as I do."

The General who'd earlier asked about the different names piped up again, asking Aunt D "General, you said that General Carmichael and the others came from Intelligence, could you explain that, please?"

Sarah looked at Aunt D and asked "May I, General?" Aunt D was happy to hand over the gavel, and Sarah turned to the man.

"For a start, General, only Generals Casey and Mills, Colonel Payne, Captain Roberts and Lieutenant Colonels Noble and Dunwoody actually started out in traditional military roles, General Casey in the Marines, General Mills, Colonel Payne and Lieutenant Colonel Noble in the Army, Commander Roberts in the Navy and Lieutenant Colonel Dunwoody in the Air Force."

"Ad.. My husband, sister-in-law and Captains Barnes and Wu started out in our Defense Clandestine Services Special Projects team, which Generals Mills and Casey were also part of. As you saw, General Mills had over twenty five and General Casey eighteen years of combat and command experience when the Special Projects group was started. My husband and sister-in-law started with the intelligence and planning functions in ninety four, and they trained and operated with special forces teams across the four primary services from around ninety five or ninety six for the Admirals, Generals and Captain Barnes, and from two thousand and one for Captain Wu, as General Beckman noted, their roles have been primarily across intelligence, combat, planning and command functions."

"Now, as General Beckman alluded to, Captains Miller, Rizzo and Burdon, Colonel Barton and myself started out in the CIA, about ten years ago for myself, a few years more for my sisters, about seventeen years more for my mother and about twenty five years more for my mother in law. Captains Miller and Rizzo, Colonel Barton and myself all trained with the CIA's SAD and NSA's Black Ops groups and have operated with them and other special forces groups since we started with the CIA. Since we joined the Special Projects team, which was in oh seven for Captain Miller and myself, oh eight for Captain Rizzo and oh nine for Colonel Barton, we adopted most of the same roles that my husband and his original team did, by which I mean everything except the cyber security functions that he and Captains Barnes and Wu do. Captain Burdon joined in oh eight and is primarily doing intelligence and planning functions."

"Colonels Payne and Chiang, Commander Roberts and Lieutenant Colonels Noble and Dunwoody came through different paths, Colonel Payne and Lieutenant Colonels Noble and Dunwoody moved into the intelligence field around two thousand from the military, the Lieutenant Colonels joined our team in oh eight, Colonel Payne in oh nine. Colonel Chiang came from another intelligence background, she joined our team in oh seven. The four of them have been doing the same intelligence, combat, planning and command functions as the rest of us since they joined. While Commander Roberts never left the Navy, he joined the team in oh eight and he's primarily doing planning and command functions."

"Sorry General, did I answer your question, or did I only muddy the waters more?"

"No, you've given me a good idea where the team came from and what functions you deliver, thank you General, though I must admit that I'd be having a hard time believing what I've heard if we weren't sitting here with the President."

Sarah smiled at that, and looked at the other commanders "Any other questions gentlemen?"

They shook their heads "No, thank you General, I think we have a reasonable idea of the team's function now."

With that, the President got Chuck to put things back to the way they'd been on his computer and they returned to the dining room. Charlie and Sammie came barrelling up to them as soon as they walked in, and Sarah was reminded that she had to have words with her sister about plying her children with sugary treats.

Luckily the sugar rush had worn off by the time they reached the Valkyrie, and they were back to the adorable little cherubs she knew and loved before they fell asleep. With that, they were free to discuss what had happened in the Oval Office, and the fact that the Commander, Transportation Command was on his way to a black site after he threatened to go to the press, so that command would be getting a new commanding officer. There would be fallout from that, to be sure.

* * *

They got back in early enough to head straight into the office, so that's what they did, putting Charlie and Sammie down in Chuck's office as Sarah had more people to talk to. Jeff brought back a memory stick with the pictures from the ceremonies, so he selected the nicest ones for each and printed them, giving them to Josie and Alex (as Chuck and Sarah's, and Ellie, Casey and Bry's aide-de-camps _)_ to get the earlier pictures in the frames around the office replaced.

As they walked in as a group, the boys couldn't pass this up, so it was "Admiral, General, Admiral, General, General, Captain, Captain, Captain, Colonel, Colonel, Captain, Captain, Colonel, Colonel, Captain, Colonel" as they streamed past, and there was a 'FLAG STREET' sign pointing down the row of offices that Ellie, Chuck, Sarah, Casey and Bry (as the initial five senior officers of Operations Command) had. Other than that, they'd controlled themselves this time, which was probably a good thing, given that they weren't in the best mood after what happened at the White House.

The service representatives who came in for meetings over the next week did a double take when they saw the new ranks that most of Operations Command's senior officers had, but with this command out of band promotions were the norm, so it didn't change their operations much.

They ploughed though as much work as they could between the Washington promotions etc, and the London, then packed up everything and piled into the Valkyrie at 22:00 the night before to fly to London.

They had a cavalcade of cars waiting for them in London. It was a difficult for them to remove all their weapons and lock them away on the Valkyrie, but they were going to see the Queen of England, less than six months after they'd stopped a plan to eliminate her and her entire family, so they were expecting serious security measures!

Of course, their uniform jackets, covered with medals and badges as they were, would have set off all the detectors, so they just handed them over to be examined before they did so. Chuck still didn't like being required to put on a dog and pony show like this every time they did this, or for that matter, he didn't like wasting time on these things at all. As far as he was concerned, it was just political gesturing and he could have done without it!

Sarah knew her man and pulled him down for a kiss to calm him as they were waiting for the uniform jackets, something that Charlie got into as well, as Sarah was holding her. This had the desired effect, and Chuck simmered down, politely thanking the soldier who handed him his uniform jacket once it had been examined, and putting it on. When they'd all been processed through security and were escorted into the Queen's presence, Chuck and Sarah handed the twins off to their grandmothers and straightened their uniforms.

The proceedings took longer than expected, because as well as what they believed that they were there for (the titles, George Cross and Order of Merit), Chuck and Sarah were being elevated from Commander to Grand Cross for both the Order of Bath and Legion of Honour (they'd wondered why the French Ambassador was there).

* * *

With that done, however, the affair became rather more casual, as the Queen wanted to get to know these extraordinary young people who seemed to be saving the world on a regular basis, from what her people were telling her. She didn't miss how quickly Chuck removed his medal covered uniform jacket when she insisted that they make themselves comfortable as they sat down to chat. Obviously this young hero wasn't much for pomp and ceremony.

She'd also wanted to meet their adorable children (Sarah had made sure that Carina knew what she'd do to her if there was any repeat of Washington today, so Charlie and Sammie were their normal sweet selves and on their best behaviour). The Queen was delighted when she asked Charlie "And who might you be young lady?" and she replied "Charlene Emma Carmichael, your Majesty" with a cute little curtsy, she acknowledged her curtsey with a regal nod and greeted her with due ceremony before she turned to face Sammie and asked "And who are you young man?" and Sammie replied with "Samuel Stephen Carmichael, your Majesty", and gave an adorably serious little bow to the Queen, which she acknowledged as she greeted him.

The Queen had caught the horrified expressions on Chuck and Sarah's faces when she went to address Charlie as 'Lady Carmichael' and amended that to 'Miss Carmichael', but when the twins were out of earshot she asked them about it.

Chuck was extremely embarrassed as he explained "I'm sorry Ma'am, but when we were discussing this after we were advised of the honours being bestowed upon us, my sister, Admiral Charlemagne (waving to Ellie), pointed out that if Charlie, that is, Charlene, found out about the fact that her proper form of address was 'Lady Carmichael', she'd insist that we call her that all the time. Unfortunately Ellie's right about that, so when we heard you begin to address her as 'Lady Carmichael', that flashed through our heads. My apologies ma'am."

That got a genuine laugh from the Queen, and she shook her head "No, I believe that I should apologise to you, as I do know what it is like when children refuse to answer to anything but their formal titles, and how trying that can be. I am sorry, that had not occurred to me."

They settled down to a nice chat after that, and the Queen found the modesty and ardour of these young people quite charming. She also found it amazing that many of the people here were immediate family, both their mothers, their three sisters, as well as Admiral Carmichael and Charlemagne's godmother and godfather, astounding!

All in all, their time with the Queen was a delightful interlude for all three of them, and Charlie and Sammie were just as adorable when they said their goodbyes to the Queen as they were when they greeted her.

The twins were asleep by the time they reached the Valkyrie, so they just put them down and settled in for the flight home, aside from the occasional 'M'lord' or 'M'lady', the others didn't push the issue.

* * *

 **A/N: OK, I realise that this is rather fluffy and stretchy, but I'm having trouble getting back to the idea of writing in the 21st Century.**

 **I'm quite aware that many will complain that the American and British honours given are unrealistic, but you know what, tough! The scenario here is that in the aftermath of them taking down the Ring and saving the heads of the world's intelligence services who weren't in the Ring's pocket, their investigations unearthed widespread plots around the world including (for those who can't read) a plot in England which included the Deputy Prime Minister and a plethora of senior politicians, military and intelligence figures who were planning on wiping out the Royal Family and staging a coup to take over the government.**

 **In my world, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that the United Kingdom's government and the Royal Family would be EXTREMELY grateful to the people who stopped those things happening, and also helped them clean up the whole mess without the people of the UK finding out about it, and would be inclined to do something to show their gratitude.**

 **Similarly, the American government and military would want to show that they were rewarding their heroes for doing the same type of thing in America, especially after they heard the lengths that the British were going to, because that's what politicians do, CYA.**

 **If anyone is offended by my portrayal of the Queen, sorry, but in appearances I've seen over the past fifty years or so I've seen glimpses of a woman with common sense and a sense of humour, so I could well see her laughing about the idea of a two year old demanding to be called 'Lady Carmichael', because I'd wager that she's been irked more than once with her children and grandchildren doing the same type of thing.**

 **NB: If anyone wondered why I deleted my other stories, there were only a handful of people here who were bothering to read them, but I quite enjoyed writing about a steampunk world, so I took them down to use them as the basis for some steampunk novels that I'm trying to get published.**


End file.
